Seed Blog

It’s a wine subscription magazine and I’m proud of it.

It’s almost a year since I was asked to be the commissioning editor for Glug, a new UK based wine magazine—a dream come true. Naturally I initially turned the job down, citing that I was already far too busy to take on a job I’d spent years working towards chasing, worried that I wouldn’t be able to do the job well enough on top of Corto and my commitments to Pellicle and my writing. Luckily for me, the team at Beer52 (well, Richard, mainly) were having none of that and I overcame the perfectionist urge to self-sabotage. And here we are.

It’s hard to explain what this role has meant to me over the past almost-year, but I’m going to try, because a lot of tarot draws and celestial goings on over the past couple of weeks have made it clear that I should be taking time to reflect and express gratitude.

At this stage I am just looking at the magazine whenever it arrives in the post and marvelling at the hard work everybody puts in to make it the thing that it is. I’m super proud of it. And here are some great pieces from it you can read online. Hope you enjoy.

• David Jesudason has written a three-part series on wine and racism and you can find the first two parts here and here.

• Rachel Hendry has written about Port and its connections to imperialism, colonialism and Empire.

• Rachel has written a lot for Glug, and here are some more of her pieces I’ve really enjoyed: Celebrity Wines and their purpose, a fantastical interview with Bacchus himself, why tinned fish is fashionable but canned wine is not,

• Wine educator and enthusiast Maureen Little writes about biodiversity from a personal perspective.

• Claire Leavey drinks wine made from the fruit grown, foraged and left by her mother, salvaged from the chest freezer.

• Ginger Rose Clark discusses sexism in French wine.

• Anna Richards talks to the young people who are leaving conventional careers behind and moving to vineyards to work and live.

• Ben Phillips writes about the Tour de France and cycling’s connection to grand wine estates.

• Samia Qaiyum, a Dubai-based writer, explores the stylish world of dry drinking.

• Sarah Nielsen gives us their recommendations for first date wine.

• Francesca Baker looks into the ill-considered world of calorie-conscious wine.

• Zanny Merullo Steffgen walks the Camino, bottle in hand.

• Sommelier Toussaint Stackhouse swaps Instagram for print to share his experiences of classical wine education and natural evangelism.

• Matthew Curtis talks about the individual joys of beer and wine.

• Jemma Beedie slams her wine list shut and orders with gusto.

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed the job of commissioning and editing them—and please click around on the site to find even more pieces I couldn’t fit in this non-exhaustive list. That these writers, illustrators, designers, and so many others, have chosen to give their time and effort to contribute to Glug makes my little heart glow.

For the past couple of months, our kitchen has become a home for putrifying vegetables. Or more accurately, it’s become a teetering collection of odd jars and bottles filled with various ingredients slowly transforming into biodomes of biocultures. I spoke about this briefly last week. Tom has become obsessed with fermenting and pickling things, and I’ve become obsessed with eating the fruits of his labour, so now every shelf in the kitchen is packed with fruit and veg, all slowly fizzing in their own decomposing juices.

So far, as I mentioned last week, his pickled turnip has been the clear favourite. But I’ve also loved the fermented green beans, his spicy, funky kimchi made with local white cabbage, his sauerkraut (which I chopped and put into omelette — delicious) and his pickled shallots, which manage to taste almost exactly like the pickled onions my nan used to make, without filling the house with the autumnal acrid scent of boiling vinegar.

The jars make me feel secure. They are slow and steady — the umeboshi made with Victoria plums and greengages (so… Vickyboshi? Greengageboshi?) won’t be ready for months, probably. They represent storing and saving and carefulness and thinking about giving yourself something to enjoy in the future. They are packed with alive things thriving in harsh, salty environments. They are delicious, and they will stay that way all winter until we eat them all. Is it annoying that I can’t get to my cookbooks anymore, the shelves being so packed with bubbling veg? Well, sortof. But having a recycled jam jar bacteria botanic garden is more important to me right now.

If you want to get into pickling and fermenting like Tom has, we can recommend the following books:

• ​Fiery Ferments by Christopher and Kirsten Shockey (who also brought out a cider book last week)

• Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz

• The Noma Guide To Fermentation by David Zilber and René Redzepi

Other Stuff

• Please support your local food bank (or donate to the Trussel Trust), continue to speak out against anti-immgiration and anti-asylum-seeking sentiment wherever you might come across it and please, if you can, consider donating to the Refugee Council if you’re in the UK. It is frankly a disgrace that people in need are dying because of our Government’s negligence, ignorance and cruelty.

• Brian Eno’s investigaive journo skills leave every other journo’s rep in tatters. Told by ChewnZine, original, excellent piece on Brian Eno’s favourite music here in The Quietus.

• This week’s J’adore le Plonk on ordering wine in restaurants and bars is so good and helpful and well worth a read. And then because it’s so consistently good, you should sign up for the newsletter too.

• If you love beer, please sign this petition to reverse the change to Small Brewers Relief. Even if you don’t know much about the beer world, if you like drinking beer, I can assure you that these changes will affect you by ensuring your favourite smaller brewers close down. It’s that serious. So please have a read and sign it!

• When I started this newsletter I was characteristically oblivious to the bubbling scene of exceptional newsletters that are actually out there. And there are SO MANY good ones! This piece in Taste covers foodie ones specifically, and I was happy to see Vittles and Alicia Kennedy in there, but there are newsletters on every subject under the sun if you go looking for them. I recommend it.

• There have been a fantastic couple of posts on Vittles about decolonising British food criticism and food PR over the past couple of weeks, but you can only read them if you’re a paying subscriber. I really recommend signing up for it, I look forward to finding inspirational, thought-provoking articles by them every week in my inbox.

• I love Jemma Beedie’s friendly, conspiratorial way of writing like she’s talking to me, and only me, over a pint in the corner of a pub. Her piece this week for Pellicle about the hauf and hauf (and lots of other fascinating Scottish measurements and international drinks orders besides) was a cosy quarter of an hour of pubchat I definitely needed.

• Brussels Beer City is releasing a book!

• I enjoyed learning about Jakarta Records on Bandcamp this week, I’ve put basically everything on this list onto my wishlist.

My Stuff

• ICYMI: I wrote about what good changes might happen post-Covid in pubs (spoiler alert: people wash their hands after going to the toilet now)

• I’ve been working on a short story that made me cry while I was writing it so look forward to that I guess

• ICYMI: A short story I wrote about tarot readings and lockdown is in the latest edition of Counterpoint magazine

“I’ll Hauf What They’re Haufing” — by James Albon for Pellicle

Since lockdown, I’ve been getting my food from the market. It’s open air, so I’m less likely to panic about airborne particles. It’s more spacious and there are no shelves, so fewer people are there reaching directly over my shoulder for cereal boxes they just couldn’t wait three seconds for me to move away from. But over time, these reasons have faded slightly to be replaced with other, better ones.

The atmosphere reminds me of the pub, a bit. The cheese man remembers me and what I usually order. The ham and cooked meats guy let me pay another day when I realised he didn’t have a card machine. The wandering people have started to become familiar. I feel comfortable spending time here, even on days of high anxiety. But the best bit, the absolute best bit, is the vegetable stall.

Spanning ten stalls or more, at this time of year the tables are rolling with Victoria plums, are caked in muddy potatoes. The cabbages are ten-feet wide. The broccoli house whole families of jackdaws. Neatly packaged prunes (best of the season!) sit primly on slim cardboard cases that are pink and decorated fit for tissue paper and lingerie. I’ve never seen so many extravagant types of tangerines. Even the turnips are beautiful.

In fact, the turnips are the most beautiful, especially after they’re pickled. Fermented in a salt solution and sliced thin, they take on a peppery spice, their pretty pink and white hues gain a delicate translucency, they become the vegetable they were born to be.

Other Stuff

• On the top of Pendle yesterday, we wondered for the millionth time what trig points are actually for. Thank god that Ordnance Survey have actually written a comprehensive blog post on the subject. (Also, the cross section of a trig point is probably not what you were expecting)

• Antique apple parers are quite fascinating, actually.

• I went to Buckfast Abbey last week and there were surprisingly few people there with the same intentions as me. I’ve wanted to write a book on Buckfast for ages, but for now I’m going to read this great article on it’s weird popularity in Scotland by Sean Murphy for The Scotsman again.

• As a teenager I was merely a vessel for the album A Song To Ruin by Million Dead (except the first track which honestly, is trash) and I’ve revisited the song The Rise And Fall this week. It’s 14 minutes plus, and is about knowledge surging through a dark and crumbling Europe via invasion — and then the subsequent tragic destruction of that culture through war and retaliation. Plus it gets all feedback-trudgy for minutes and minutes and minutes which I also think is pretty cool.

• Ibiza sunsets every night via the 24/7 Café del Mar radio livestream. Dress me in board shorts and drape a glowstick necklace around my neck. This is all I need. (Tonight’s will be at around 7.40 UK time FYI.)

• I found this piece on self-awareness in modern literature interesting, but not because of the topic. Reading books and then discussing what they should or could have been isn’t something I do with much enthusiasm, but through the eyes of Katy Waldman here I’ve been forced to. While it was an interesting thought experiment for me, can we really ask authors to discuss sharp and complex sociopolitics when they have no background or expertise in them? Especially at a time when we’re simultaneously crying out to read books about topics that reflect writers’ genuine lived experiences?

• A week and a bit ago I was bottling The Old Man And The Bee at Little Pomona, so please read this by Nicci Peet on Little Pomona’s wonderful patch of paradise and their brilliant ciders and perries so you can feel like you were there too (although when Nicci went it was chilly and when I was there it was 30-odd degrees).

My Stuff

• Something I wrote about how things could change for the better in pubs post-virus is now available on Ferment’s website.

• ICYMI: A few weeks ago I wrote about burger vans and bike rallies for Pellicle mag.

• I’ve sent another article off to Pellicle and I’m working on the edits this week so hopefully that’ll be with you all soon.

• I’ve been working on a fair few pieces for Ferment too, so expect to see them soon.

• I’m working on the second round of edits of my book.

• I’m writing a lot of short stories and have even managed to rope a pro in to edit one so I’ll be working on that for the foreseeable too.

• A project I’m working on with Tom is coming together. More info soon.

• I’m not going to be on Twitter much for a while — it’s all A Bit Much and honestly it just fucks with my productivity. If you need me, or you just want to tell me something, find me on Instagram, or email me. I’ve also got a book-based Instagram if that’s more your thing.

Pendle Hill trig point looking towards Whalley and Clitheroe.
Photography by Lee Pilkington

I can tell the summer holidays are around the corner. This time of year feels like a fold in a page. Everything I’m doing feels like it can either be sacked off and carried over, or must be done immediately before I lose the thread entirely. There’s a natural break in the direction of my life at the moment and it’s eerily matching up with the end of term. 

I’m lethargic and I want to be anywhere but my desk. I am close to having a temper tantrum. I literally got up and had a nap in the middle of this sentence. We’re supposed to be easing back into some assemblance of normality but fundamental things have changed. The world continues to be a dangerous, unpredictable place. When my mum used to say “what is normal?” in a spooky voice I used to think it was cringey and annoying, but now that’s my constant state of being. There’s no normality and there’s nothing I can do about it.

 And I can look on the bright side too; I’ve managed to get a lot of other things done recently. But none of it is my actual job and as the weeks tick on and the days at the beginning of lockdown seem further away and more imaginary, I’m left wondering if I’ll ever have a normal week again. A normal sleeping pattern again. A steady income again.

Who knows? Sometimes all you can do to feel like you have a grasp on the situation is whinge about it. Thanks for letting me whinge at you. Now on to the good stuff:

Other Stuff

• Feeling all of the above? Try watching videos of massive forges and hydraulic presses. Makes me feel better anyway.

• This video on women smoking in cinema is really interesting and delves into the engineering of consent and the use of women’s liberation as a marketing campaign, the effects of which are still benefitting tobacco companies today.

• A conversation between a writer and a billionaire Wall Street guy. The bleakest thing I’ve read in ages, and I read a lot of bleak shit. There were a lot of comments under this online saying how pointless and awful it was for Max Abelson to be so passive, or even to have given this anonymous richo a platform in the first place. I think I was grateful to hear from a totally alien perspective, to read for myself how out of touch, ignorant and callous money can make a person. (Or were they always that way? Fascinating.)

• Shelter has been fighting for “No DSS” rental bans to be outlawed for years, and this week a judge ruled them against equality laws. Shelter genuinely do amazing work supporting people facing homelessness, fighting against corruption in housing and filing suits against disreputable landlords. If you are looking for a charity to support this month, I ask you to check them out.

• The magical story of a 4thC CE golden ring engraved with the Pagan goddess Venus found in a field in 1785.

• In the Guardian Life & Style section there is a Tree Of The Week column. I am very into this. And I particularly like this Welsh yew.

• Short story “Rule One” by Simon Stephenson read by Cel Spellman in aid of UNICEF.

• “An ode to Peckham on a Sunday evening when everyone has gone to Burgess Park”

• Is everything cake? By now, yes. I loved this investigation into the viral video of not-cakes that were actually cakes featuring writer and cordon bleu cook Olivia Potts.

• Support your local museum — buy a mask from their gift shop. And then for the love of god wear it. (There’re a lot of great links to online art exhibitions in this piece too, FYI)

• A beautiful piece on the self-made myth of Sun Ra, blackness and a search for identity by Namwali Serpell. “He’s the boy who cried wolf, he’s the wolf itself, he’s the shimmering go-between.”

• Culinary Backstreets is one of my favourite food sites on the internet, and its coverage of how cities are coming back from lockdown are really interesting and, even though I found them hard to read to start with, are actually quite uplifting. Here’s a great piece on how people are adapting Catalan culinary traditions in Barcelona rather than losing them altogether.

• Black Lives Matter is not over. Don’t let it fade. Here’s a list of petitions to sign.

• Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world, was first mapped by Stephen Bishop, one of the cave’s first tour guides and a slave. In 1972, computer programmer Patricia Crowther was the first person to cross the boundary between Flint Ridge and Mammorth Cave, proving its connection — something cavers had been trying to do for more than a century. It’s a fascinating read and then you also learn that her maps were coded into one of the first ever video games by her ex-husband. Oooh I LOVE reading about caving and this is a great story.

My Stuff

• I completed the first draft of my novel on Sunday. I think I’ve claimed this in error before — since then I added 25,000 words. I’m on with the first round of edits now. Only 159 A4 pages to go.

• Pre-order a copy of August’s edition of Counterpoint magazine and you’ll find me in there, writing a story about tarot cards.

• If you feel like buying me a pint, I always gratefully accept ko-fi tips. Especially since the pub is actually open now!

Stonehenge with the comet Neowise by Matthew Browne

It’s been a big week of personal change, and things are only going to get changier. It’s odd that everything in the world seems to be in flux at a time when so much is being shuffled and reset in my own life. It feels like a natural break in transmission. Like lockdown was a temporary power cut, and as the lights flicker back on I’m looking around and seeing faces doing the same, noticing the world again.

Over the weekend I went into the Yorkshire Dales to go camping and I was worried about how I’d react to unfamiliar open spaces after so long in the same landscape. When we reached Malham, I realised how much I had missed green hills and limestone. I could have hugged every walker we passed in bright waterproofs. I can see my countryside again. We stopped talking for a moment, having not shut up for an hour, no radio on. We were both choked up by the sight of the steep valley of Wharfedale, and the thought of being free.

How melodramatic.

Other Stuff

• A sensitive and interesting look at Virgina Woolf’s letters to Violet Dickinson in the context of our current situation by Kamran Javadizadeh. “From where I sit today and write, Virginia’s desire to leave behind a climate of illness, to get up and go away, to be transported to a future one can’t quite see—and which may not exist—feels familiar and intense.”

• The joy and clear admiration in Rebecca May Johnson’s voice when she recounts how Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum changed her life and outlook is invigorating. Like being stood out in a stiff wind, or standing in a room full of music up as loud as it can go.

• Gay’s The Word bookshop are running a scheme where you can buy a copy of Gender Explorers for somebody else. Call 020 7278 7654 if you’d like to buy one as a donation. If you’d like a copy of the book but aren’t able to buy one at the moment, email gaystheword@gmail.com and they will send you a copy somebody else has purchased, subject to availability. (Remember to include your address in the email.)

• Rachel Hendry has created something really special with her off-the-cuff but deeply-felt weekly wine emails. J’Adore Le Plonk is the wine and culture newsletter that cuts through the shit to the truly joyful stuff that you didn’t know you needed. Here’s the full archive and signup link.

• I have said this before but Vittles is the fucking bomb. This week a newsletter contributed to by multiple writers focused on eating disorders and disordered eating, specifically during lockdown. Vital reading for anyone in the food and dining industry, difficult and relateable to many, important for everyone.

• Incarceratedly Yours is a zine created by artists incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California. This particular edition is about the worries and dangers posed by COVID-19 in the overstretched prison system, and asks why prison is seen as a suitable/functioning part of society in 2020. It’s a stunning piece of work that invites action as well as education. There’s a poem called Secret Ocean in it that really stopped me in my tracks.

• The Windrush Posters by Rianne Jones are now available to buy on her website. All proceeds will go to the Anchor Windrush campaign.

• Zinnebir, immortalised forever by Eoghan Walsh as the true beer of Brussels — “the Brussels people’s ale”. You can argue, but you’d be wrong.

• A profile and interview on Michaela Coel that’s so good I don’t know whether to be divinely inspired by her (and, fair play, the writer of the piece E. Alex Jung) or give up writing forever and move into a cave somewhere.

• I’m reading Boy Parts by Eliza Clark and it’s the first book I’ve picked up in ages that I can’t wait to get back to.

My Stuff

• I spoke to pro quizmasters about how to create the best pub quizzes so that I don’t have to answer who Henry VIII’s wives were in order ever again.

• I submitted some short stories to Unbound as a collection. Will let you know if I hear anything back.

• Tom and I are working on a very exciting project that I may be able to reveal more about in a couple of weeks. Before anyone “hilariously” asks, no, I’m not pregnant.

• Do you like vegan food? Follow Vegan MCR on Instagram, we are gonna be working on something together soon.

• Tonight I’m co-hosting a Graftwood Q+A for Manchester Cider Club. I’m worried I don’t actually have any decent cider to drink for it (my cupboards are bare and I forgot to put an order in! Sob!) but you should join us! Zoom link here. Starts at 7pm.

Zinnebir by James Albon

This weekend the pubs are opening. I know this, not because I read it in a paper or because I saw it on a sign pinned to the door of my local, but because it is the current constant ambient city street noise on Twitter. It’s a distant siren getting closer and closer. Soon the noise will get too loud to talk over and then it’ll just stop: the pubs will be open.

For sanity’s sake throughout this horrible few months of boring home imprisonment I’ve tried not to think about having a pint of Pride of Pendle with my friends and pubmates in the front room of the New Inn. But now I’m thinking about it, and I’m really looking forward to it. I really am. But it so happens that a friend and I booked a camping trip for this weekend, so I’m actually not going to be able to pop in for a ceremonial first-post-lockdown pint at my local. How fucking typical is that? 

I haven’t enjoyed drinking in the house. It’s not the same to chat over Zoom with a tinny. I’ve really missed being able to talk about things over a table of pints and a packet of quavers. Video calls feel forced, and I don’t ever want to say how I really feel. We’re keeping in touch and keeping each other’s heads above water. These conversations are not the place to set the world to rights. You can’t have a good-natured argument over the phone. Not easily anyway, and not while there are several horsemen of the apocalypse cantering overhead. So I will, despite being afraid to go outside and extremely nervous about catching a deadly virus, be going to the pub when I can and when I can be shown how safe it is. And I’m letting myself get a bit excited about that.

Other Stuff

• The microcosm garden in Geneva is where parts of CERN’s equipment now live in their retirement. 

• Joe Strummer made a radio show for the BBC in 1998 and you can listen to it here. I highly recommend it, especially if you love reggae, punk, world music, Latin jazz and maybe even some Berlin techno.

• Get your Pellicle shirt here. Be cool.

• “But plant roots can crack and buckle even concrete slabs.” Ruby Tandoh’s wonderful story of Esiah Levy’s life’s purpose as a gardener, and of seeds and migration and preservation.

• I have no tie to Chicago. I do seem to read about it fairly often though. This report on Blackbird restaurant closing forever due to the coronavirus was sad, all reports like it are, but one question in it stuck with me: “Are we even Chicago without Blackbird?” What would have to close near me to make me ask a similar question?

• Transform Harm is a really useful resource hub full of articles and information about important topics worth educating ourselves about and interrogating like abolition, transformative justice, carceral feminisms and community accountability.

• I have never been to the USA, but I do watch a lot of TV shows and listen to a lot of music. I’ve always wondered what a 40 was, so I gave in this week and Googled it, and found not one but two great articles about them.

• Something I’ve been coming to terms with recently is that my view of food has been unrealistically comfortable and rose-tinted. Articles like this one by Bettina Makalintal describe how narratives in food programming are overwhelmingly white, and that food does not, and cannot, and should not be allowed to be seen to transcend the political and social issues bound up within its production, preparation and distribution.

• How can food media work to improve and ultimately stamp out its racism? Cathy Erway for Grub Street has some solid ideas.

• Sandra Oh on bringing her characters’ ethnicities forward in the work she does (most recently Killing Eve) because nobody else is stepping up.

• “How To Know You’re Not Insane” is a difficult but essential read on how Nicholas Carter was gaslit and fired from his writing role at Cards Against Humanity, sectioned despite being healthy, and ultimately fired because he tried to speak up against racism within the company.

• A review of Underworld’s 1999 Glastonbury appearance, dictated over the phone while the writer was off his tits.

• I want to play this game very much. Hurry up and be released.

My Stuff

• I’ve spent this whole week trying to finish the first draft of my book (which I thought was finished but absolutely was not).

• I also entered two short story competitions this week. As always, thank you very much if you tipped me via ko-fi — this is how I paid for the (frankly, extortionate this time) entry fees.

• From the archives: Bread For All, And Cider Too — my interview with Dick and Cath, the Manchester real cider activists.

Joe Strummer running the London Marathon — Steve Rapport

I thought today I would write about Anthony Bourdain, it being his birthday and everything. I thought, two years since his death, that I would find it heartwarming to talk about his life and how he inspired me in my work.

But is hearing about other people’s heroes interesting at all? And what is there I can add to the constantly resurfacing bubbles of melancholic appreciation for his time on earth? As Alicia Kennedy pointed out in her newsletter this week, “there is just… too much to say“.

In a Medium post I wrote in the immediate days after he died, I wrote things I don’t think I could write now. I was shocked by how deeply upset I was at losing a celebrity. I couldn’t explain why I was so shaken. So, obviously, I wrote about it. I read the piece I wrote again this morning and started editing it, an automatic reaction, but tiding up the messy expressions of grief I’d tried so hard to communicate at that time seemed wrong. I don’t think they should be tidied. Honesty is too often tidied up and made digestible, especially in food and drink writing, critical or not. He was an honest man in his work. I felt for a while I owed him the honesty of my raw panic that a man so long past his addictions and who had lived so long and so strongly with depression, the same mental illness that I suffer with, could decide that he no longer wanted any part in the world he obviously deeply loved.

But I don’t want to remember him that way. He was, in his own word, an enthusiast. I want to be enthusiastic about his legacy. So here is an excerpt I don’t remember writing from a piece I return to every year:

There is a comfortable space inside my head where I retreat to and ask “what would Bourdain do?” I do it as I stand nervously by the steps of an unfamiliar bar, or hesitate to try the oysters, or hold my middle finger poised over the backspace button to delete a sentence that reveals too much of what’s inside. His influence on me has reached into depths of “fuck it” I never knew existed and pushed me into experiences I would never have enjoyed (or endured) without his distant goading. When I ask myself what he would do, I sometimes see him sat at a table meant for people much smaller than him, fingertips tapping a glass of beer that’s frosty in the humidity, waiting in a small moment of quiet thought for something special to arrive. He doesn’t give advice to me. He is a figment of my imagination, which I use as a tool to force myself into doing things I’m too scared to do. I often wonder what his motivation was on his darkest days.

You can find the whole messy, honest piece here.

Other Stuff

• Writers having a block at the moment might like this piece by Anna Sere about how she writes her books. It certainly made me feel a bit more optimistic.

• I mentioned it earlier but Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter this week is a great and informative read on how even the most well-meaning-seeming food programming centres whiteness and often (and definitely in this case) constant references to the capitalist American Dream.

• I supported Gender Euphoria by Laura Kate Dale on Unbound and I wanted to show you the project too — essays from trans, non-binary, agender, intersex and gender fluid people about the joy of being who you truly are.

• I’m sorry but this meme about Wetherspoons has simultaneously made and ruined my week.

• Mezcal in the lush green hills of Oaxaca, Mexico. Total escapism, beautiful pics, read it now.

• I rediscovered the album Orchestra of Bubbles by Ellen Allien and Apparat this week and I can’t stop listening to it. How it manages to sound fresh and yet already have the audacity to be 14 years old, I have no idea.

• Reclaim The Block have decided to pause requests for donations and refuse any coming in for the moment, and are instead requesting that people donate to charities and community-led organisations they’ve listed here.

• This week was the anniversary of the Empire Windrush reaching Britain. The British Library has some great resources by Black writers and artists in their Windrush Stories collection, including Back to My Own Country, an essay on racism and exploring culture and heritage through writing by Andrea Levy.

• I really enjoyed Melissa Cole’s piece Look For The Helpers in Ferment Magazine. As a barperson myself, I’m anxious about bars reopening (not that ours is, any time soon) and hope, as Melissa does, that all service industry people giving you the food and drink you’ve been jonesing for for the past four months are treated well, and with respect. And also that:
  “…once we’ve looked at those people who are happy to profit off the back of a pandemic, at the expense of the people whose blood, sweat and tears have made them their money, perhaps it’s also time to look at spending our cash elsewhere.”

• I love Otessa Moshfegh’s writing so much that for some time now, I’m worried that everything that comes out of my brain is in some way a sad reproduction of her short story collection Homesick For Another World. This critique of her forthcoming book by Rumaan Alaam says she “strives to be gross”, and as a fan, I was ready to jump to her defence. But it’s true. And this is a great review. I still enjoy her grossness, though.

My Stuff

• ICYMI: I spoke to Jaeger Wise about Wild Card Brewery, how she got into brewing beer and making beer accessible to everyone. I had a great time chatting to her and I hope you enjoy reading the interview.

• ICYMI: I like a pint of mild. So does everyone, it seems. So why is nobody buying it?

Sierre Norte, Oaxaca — Josh Smith for Pellicle

I’ve made apricot jam twice now during lockdown. It’s easy, so easy that it feels like the end is a mistake the universe has made. When I look at the glowing jars of molten amber on the top shelf of my fridge, I cannot understand how they got there. It’s as though the fruit has played a trick on me, and instead of boiling itself into jam, it became something else. A shining captured sunset.

The trick, really, is to do nothing, or at least do as little as possible. Apricots seem to prefer a quiet life. I imagine having a French mémé and her telling me so, explaining that the beauty of these soft, fragrant fruits is that they will only give up their secrets if you let them. I don’t have a French mémé though, so I’m afraid that whimsy is all me.

The trick is to rinse them, half and stone them (or quarter them if they’re particularly big), then put them in a bowl and toss them in sugar. For a 500g punnet, 350g is enough. Then, leave them overnight covered with a teatowel. Just when you think things are getting too much and you’re done with the exercise and the thoughts about lockdown are creeping back in just… leave them. Nap. Sign some petitions. Go to bed, forget about it. Then wake up, do whatever you need to do and when you feel like it, put the whole bowl of liquid-soaked sugar and juicy apricots into a pan, and bring up to a boil. Sterilise two jam jars. Turn the jam down to a low simmer and pop a vanilla pod (or some vanilla essence) in. Stir. You don’t even need to stir it often. When it’s thick enough (just guess, does it really matter? Not in this day and age) pour it into the jars. Cool on the side. Put in the fridge. You have made apricot jam. You are smart, and self-sufficient, and you have created something beautiful.

Take your jam jars out of the fridge periodically and gaze at them. Eat on white bread, or toast, or scones, or inside a cake, or by the spoonful, or on ice cream. Then put the jars back and rest, just like an apricot.

Other Stuff

• How an intricate honeycomb led to some internet sleuthing by a folklorist. The idea of folklore intersecting the way we share information on the internet isn’t something I’d heard of before this Twitter thread, but I’m now obsessed with it.

• Journalist Lee Tran Lam posted a really interesting thread about the white western image of fine dining this week. In it she linked to some great pieces including this from ABC Australia that asks “if we love Asian food so much, why are nearly all award winning chefs white?” and delves into SO MANY THINGS including the whiteness of leadership and the diversity of labour, the pricing and therefore the perceived value of cuisines, the whiteness of food writing and ALSO it has this excellent section on “culture” v “art” with Dr Jane Chi Hyun Park where she says: “They have to make their heritage cool for Western consumers…The coolness element is linked to class capital.” Really, it’s an essential read.

• Soleil Ho asks an interesting question: should we want to change mainstream food media when it probably isn’t really necessary anymore. Now that it’s been flipped upside-down and wriggling like a racist woodlouse I kindof see her point. In this piece she shares a ton of great indie food mags and newsletters to seek out, loads of which I’d never heard of. Go find them!

• Anarchism is what I call for at least twice a day in exasperation, so this illuminating, realistic piece on mutual aid in Argentina by Zoe Smith for Correspondant was a positive moment in my week. (Found via Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter, I think.)

• Right wing rhetoric isn’t fringe in the UK, it’s shaping the mainstream, says Dawn Duhaney for Gal-dem. They must be fought, and to do that, we need to understand who they are, what they want, and how they are organising.

• Why is there such anti-trans poison in the British media? Why are those who perpetuate hate speech against trans people made comfortable here? And why is the government pandering to their bigoted views by dialling back the rights of trans people? This piece by Hannah Ewens is really informative and thoughtfully-written, but fair warning: it’s very upsetting.

• When you insult Trump, don’t resort to ableist language. He is hateful for many reasons, use those instead.

• Matthew Curtis says Beak Brewery are ones to look out for, and I believe him.

• Marcus Rashford’s fight this week wasn’t just against poverty, but structural racism and classism too, writes Jude Wanga.

• Vittles, the newsletter by Jonathan Nunn, is just too fucking good. It’s just too good. And it’s out nearly every day. I can’t keep up. This on halloumi with Jenny Linford I haven’t even finished yet and I love it so much already I’m including it here.

• Hollie Stephens went to Cologne for the carnival and nipped out for beers before it all started, and because of her piece about it, I feel like I did too.

My Stuff

• All Together Now — Missing Link, Lost Pier, Rock Leopard, Little Monster and Drop Project work together to create a beer for Hospitality Action.

• I entered two competitions this week, one a short fiction, the other a “work in progress” for a novel that I loathe to call a novel. Thank you for your tips via ko-fi, they enabled me to afford the entry fees.

• Later this month I should have several more articles sent off to various editors (yes, I see you and I promise!) 

• I should also hear back from some comps

• And I’m going to send some fiction to some lit mags

Untitled, by Andy Kelly

Someone asked on Twitter whether the Angel of the North should be torn down considering the deserved fate of so many monuments to slavery this week. It made me wonder why someone would openly admit they didn’t understand the context of the situation, or know the difference between a sculpture and a statue. But as usual, I was being naive. They weren’t confused at all. They were deflecting.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the word “gullible” and how often I refer to myself as being so. Is it bad to be gullible when all it means is to trust the word of someone else? Is it a sign of stupidity? Am I right to be deeply disappointed in myself every time I believe a lie?

Like Seymour Skinner, I’ve decided no. It’s the rest of the world that’s wrong. I might be gullible, but that means I’m not a cynic. I might occasionally make a tit out of myself for believing something, but at least I have belief. Over time I’ve learned to protect myself better by reading and learning, so that I’m not led astray. But I’ve realised I’ve also worked hard to make sure this hasn’t made me less open-minded or ready for change. Maybe this is why I have faith that the world can become a better, fairer place. Because no matter how many people tell me the world can’t run that way, I still believe in it. And if that’s gullibility, I’m okay with that.

By the way, it’s almost exactly a year since I started The Gulp. Imagine that! I have always said that I would never make this a paid-for “service” and that’s still true. However if you’ve found inspiring links through this newsletter, or you’ve just enjoyed getting told a strange little story every week, and you’d like to send a monetary token of gratitude my way, here is my Paypal and here is my Ko-Fi. Thank you very much.

Other Stuff

• Jeezy chreezie do I love writing when it takes me on a journey, like this fun adventure around Pisa by Craig Ballinger.

• “What do you really miss about restaurants?” asks Pamela Brunton. Earlier this week I tweeted about missing Safran, partly because of it’s food, but also because I remember it as where I have had my best friendly arguments, longest conversations and created the funniest in-jokes. 

• During the immediate aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and during the protests that followed, I was getting most of my news updates from Unicorn Riot. This piece in the New Yorker is a really interesting insight into this not-for-profit media collective.

• A never-published-before short story by little-known cult writer Ernest Hemingway.

• Are you subscribed to J’Adore le Plonk yet? You should be. This week’s is about prosecco, and privilege, and accessibility, and it’s brilliant.

• Alicia Kennedy’s newsletter this week was about anarchism and feeding the fight and as usual, it was a timely, fascinating and enlightening read full of further reading tips and links. Subscribe. Read. Do it now.

• Food critic Jimi Famurewa missed his mum’s cooking, so asked her to teach him some of his fave Nigerian dishes over zoom and then wrote about the partially-calamitous results for The Guardian. It’s so bittersweet and so good. 

• A Twitter thread by Ruby Tandoh on what the food industry could be if we stepped up and challenged those in charge to tackle racism in their own houses.

• This week I missed Anthony Bourdain on the sad anniversary of his death. This piece about tracing his footsteps and eating crab backs in San Francisco by Matthew Curtis is a whole-hearted reminder of what he meant to so many of us in the food and drink world, and a very suitable way to raise a glass to his memory.

• Following this week’s loose theme of anarchism and community action, Jonathan Nunn writes about what restaurants could be to their communities; places of nutrition, social spaces, anti-poverty activism hubs.

• Thank you to David Sun Lee for bringing the CBC podcast Frontburner to my attention. This episode on Bon Appétit, race and food culture is so good, especially on the topic of white people as the centre of the food media universe and therefore the prioritised audience for it.

• Ruby Tandoh’s Instagram post about her new book Cook As You Are also goes into the way food media culture is seen through a white lens. Her views on inclusivity and accessibility in food are always so inspirational to me.

My Stuff

• If a pint of mild is poured without someone debating its waning existence, did it ever get poured at all?

• What are brewers up to during lockdown and furlough? Let’s find out.

• Thank you to those of you who sent tips my way over the past couple of weeks. I used the money to enter three writing competitions, and I used the rest to top up my donations to Black Visions Collective, Unicorn Riot and Black Lives Matter, among other individual Black and trans fundraisers. I, and they, really appreciate your support.

• This month I have no fewer than 13 short story and writing competitions on my list.  Of course I will not enter all 13 competitions. I’ll let you know how I get on.

From 24 Hour Pisa People, by Craig Ballinger

Ugh, to be stood there, drinking beer, smelling food, hearing laughs.

A lot of the directions my life has taken have been because of my political views and ethics. I studied journalism because I wanted to report the truth (lol). I’ve been an activist in many ways since I was a kid. Ever since I got a peace sign sticker at a bike rally that said “Ban The Bomb” across the bottom, and I didn’t know what it meant, and my dad made fun of the “hippies” I thought were cool who gave it to me. I chose then that I’d rather have worn the sticker and associated with them than with the person who couldn’t tell me why not banning bombs was cooler or better. I stuck the sticker on the wooden headboard of my bunk bed, and I thought about how big the world was, and how there was so much I didn’t know.

I haven’t been a vocal activist about anything for a long time. I’ve been barely-active in the most minimal ways — signing petitions, writing to my MP from time to time, RTing things I stand for. Calling myself anti-fascist. Sending money to charities. But I’ve been deeply afraid of confrontation. Something, I don’t really know what, probably a combination of complicated things, totally knocked the bravery out of me for years. And through that I dug myself into a huge guilty hole. I should be doing more. I could be doing more. On it went.

So, if you’re seeing a lot of noise from me this week and wondering where it’s come from, it’s because I’m back. I don’t know where I’ve been, but I’m here; for Black and Minority Ethnic people, for my LGBTQIA+ family, for feminism, for the working class, for the underprivileged, for the marginalised. A fire has been lit and I’m ready to show up for you and for the future. I’m sorry to have waited this long. And I’m hoping it’s not too little too late.

Getting to this point was not something I did alone. Hundreds of activists, some of them might even read this, who actually show up and do the work have shown me that speaking up against injustice is not inappropriate or somehow diluting or diverting the message. Getting it wrong is nothing to be afraid of — I just need to use my voices and my privilege for good, and educate myself so that I can learn from those mistakes.

Other Stuff

• When Black bird watcher Christian Cooper was threatened by a white woman in Central Park, it raised again that Black people are subjected to discrimination and profiling even while enjoying the great outdoors. #BlackBirdersWeek (a haven of positivity in this moment) was set up to “to counter the narrative that the outdoors are not the place Black people should be… to educate the birding and broader outdoor-loving community about the challenges Black birders specifically face.” It’s also “to encourage increased diversity in birding and conservation.” Read the full article here.

• Looking for an independent radical bookshop to buy your books from? Here’s a great list.

• “We need to support the hospitality industry with cash, not likes” says Charlie Harding, and she’s right.

• I started listening to NPR in the mornings a couple of weeks ago because I’m insufferable, but it’s been super valuable this week to learn about the Black Lives Matter protests from a US perspective. I found this short (6 min or so) report really informative, but also heartbreaking.

• Something different I found on NPR: A deep dive into the Taylor Ham/Pork Roll war of New Jersey. What is it? Why does it have different names? Why do people care? It’s a great listen and sets you up for something in a similar tone I’m working on for Pellicle at the moment.

• Help diversity-led indie publishers tell more stories by helping fund this Inclusive Indies crowdfunder.

• It’s well worth reading this by Alicia Kennedy to see how food is much more complicated than “eating local” or going “plant based”. We are all complicit in exploitation in the food industry. What are we going to do about it?

• Where was the outrage for Breonna Taylor? An important and upsetting question. In honour of Breonna’s birthday tomorrow, (Friday 5 June) the #BirthdayForBreonna campaign has been set up to make it easy for all of us to commemorate her life by fighting for justice. Follow this link to find a list of concrete actions you can do now.

• In the 1980s, Jamaican beef patties were BANNED in Toronto by beaurocrats! And it caused an uproar! Why? Because they didn’t match a technical description for a meat patty — aka. a burger. 

• I dunno about you, but I know next to nothing about Chinese wet markets. I didn’t even know they were called “wet markets” until people started talking about them in conjunction with COVID-19. “Absolutely Disgusting: Wet Markets, Stigma Theory and Xenophobia” is super interesting, and really delves into some complex and uncomfortable topics in an accessible way.

• Chris Lambert’s “Letter To My White Friends” is powerful, clear and important. Please read and share it.

(I read and bookmarked a lot more features than this this week but I’m going to roll them over to next week because this newsletter is already overlong. Sorry to anybody who wrote something amazing about food and drink this week that I’ve not included.)

My Stuff

• It was brilliant to chat to Jaega Wise, brewer, broadcaster and one of the busiest women in beer for Ferment magazine. I love it when interviews with beer folk move into topics of inclusion, gentrification, diversity and accessibility. Read it here.

Illustration by Jeremy Kai for The Torontoist