getting lost together in november
jamón ibérico, the pentagon at midnight, crying into basque cheesecake
All five mornings Zoe stayed with me started the same way. Sharing my tiny double bed during her London visit meant poor-to-slightly-average sleep: overheating, sweating through the duvet, growing familiar with each other’s just-fallen-asleep breathing patterns. But it also meant that every morning, after one of our alarms went off, we’d lie there, croaky-voiced, describing the nonsensical dreams we’d just been stirred from. Still lingering in our separate sleepy worlds, our sentences would draaaaaag oooon and make little sense.
Daniel Burke…from middle school…he asked if I wanted to go to this Christmas party…I think…we were in some strange house I’ve never seen before…everyone was mad at me?
The ramblings went on too long, often filled with characters completely irrelevant to the other. But none of that mattered. We’d lie, blinking at the ceiling, duvet cover pulled up to our chins, listening to the other’s winding tale, hmming and ooooing, doling out the proper oh my gods, and that’s so weirds at the right moments. And in giving space to these bizarre melodramas—hanging around in them instead of rushing into our days—we allowed ourselves time to process. To poke around the dusty corners of the labyrinths in our minds. It wasn’t about clarity or coherence, but just the comfort of being witnessed—of sharing a space where our inner worlds could unravel, safely.
The generosity of time and attention is so intimate.
—
I think about our little morning ritual and I remember when I took a late-night train home after a sudden break-up. My parents were out of town, so a friend picked me up from the station to drive me home, promising to sleep over and care for me. Jake pulled up in his sedan, my hastily packed suitcase tossed in the trunk, and we set off. What should have been a relatively straightforward 45-minute drive stretched into nearly two hours. Jake was laser-focused on me and my story—gently asking questions, listening intently to every answer—so much so that he missed every single turn. I don’t exaggerate: every turn.
I still laugh thinking about that drive along the spooky, barely-lit bends of the George Washington Parkway, crossing the bridge between D.C. and Virginia two, maybe even three times, trying to get back on track. At one point, we somehow ended up in the empty parking lot of the goddamn high-security-protected Pentagon building.
Jake was so firmly planted in my narrative, letting me guide him at my own pace, that the lady inside Google Maps, trying to get us home, was just going to have to “recalculate” yet again. We finally made it home after 2 a.m. and crawled into my parents’ bed, where I could come back to my reality and sadness in the silence of the room. But I remember feeling grateful for the drive and how he’d made me laugh.
The generosity of time and attention is so precious, so endlessly affirming.
—
November was a month of checking in. I got to share my new city, new life, with two of my best friends who had booked tickets to come visit. We ate flaky pastries in the mornings and headed for the front window seats of every double-decker bus. Despite the uncertainty hanging over much of my life these days, they were both wholly committed to learning the details with me: asking questions, requesting to see my already-important places, while also letting me fumble as I got us lost—they didn’t expect me to have anything figured out just yet.
I did my own checking in too, visiting my parents in Seville, where they’re also adjusting to impermanence: new identities, roles, habits, and an entirely new culture. It was really something to see them completely out of their element. I walked into a kitchen full of Post-It Notes of Spanish vocab words stuck to every appliance. They showed me their walk to the language school, telling me about their teachers and the classmate who talks about herself too much. But while they had so much to excitedly point out to me—so many minidramas to orient me to—they also took advantage of my presence to reflect on how they were really feeling.
Adopting the role of listener, I could give them space to be honest about the speed bumps of adjusting to a new reality without trying to fit it all into tidy boxes. Yes, the city is beautiful, and yes, this new journey of theirs is incredible. But they also remarked on how all this newness and change has felt in their bodies. How it’s revealed two brains that are getting older, too. They don’t feel as agile, and it all feels rather strange. Very exciting, very stimulating, but also fucking strange. Sometimes just getting it out is the point, and I was glad I could give them more space to do so—especially after a lifetime of forcing them to listen to my reflections and confusions and fears and yearnings.
—
In last November’s review, I attempted to focus on gratitude, even as the world around me felt so painfully bleak. This year, of course, the bleakness persists—the results of an election that had me crying silent, stupid tears into a slice of Basque cheesecake in Spain; climate disasters that seem to come in and ravage on a steady loop; over a year of unfathomable genocide.
But I’m still committed to gratitude (I say with a shaky voice..)—this year, for all of these tiny moments of sharing honest space, both up close and through the screen of Facetime. Spending hours keeping each other company on the phone. Sharing stinky bedsheets and hearing how a friend’s brain ticks. Witnessing parents feel a little lost at their stage in life, too.
It is so special to be willing to tread into murky waters, and just get lost together—whether that’s in the swirling chaos of our minds, or on actual winding roads. The moments of magic that come from it encourage me to stay cracked open, which, god, feels increasingly harder at every age. But I think it’s what makes it all bearable?
Everything I’ve Cooked
Soups, Salads, and Sides
Next Level Lemon Miso Potatoes for not one but two Friendsgivings (I’ll keep linking these until you make them).
A comforting weeknight Turmeric Carrot & Sweet Potato Soup:
Simmer diced onion, minced ginger, grated carrots, ground turmeric, salt and pepper in olive oil. Add peeled sweet potato chunks, toss, deglaze with 2 cups of water or broth, bring to a boil, and simmer until soft. Add butter beans and heat through, use an immersion blender to blitz half, then stir in chopped cilantro, lemon juice, more pepper, and olive oil.
Kale Salad with Honey’d Walnuts, excellent
Proteins, Pastas, and Mains
Zucchini Feta Frittatas for early class mornings.
Butternut squash, thyme, and sage, roasted low and slow.
Salmon fillets slathered with a mixture of white miso, sesame oil, and soy sauce, roasted at 425° for 9ish minutes.
A vague vegan mac n cheese-ish pasta for a cold evening:
Blanched zucchini, basil, and kale, a can of chickpeas, heavy shakes of nutritional yeast, and a drizzle of tahini, blended, then added to pasta.
Salt-brined baked chicken, pulled for salads and bowls.
Sweets, Brekkies, and Baked Bites
I made this Deep-Dish Honey Apple Galette and it was… not fantastic? Next time, I’d opt for either a traditional thin, crispy galette or a classic pie eaten fresh from the oven.
A creamy snack in the form of the flesh from a 10-minute pricked and microwaved sweet potato, 1 frozen banana, spoons of peanut butter and oat flour, almond milk, and salt, all blended. We loove baby food in this household.
Everything I’ve Ordered
London
A delicious Sunday nut roast at the Duke of Cambridge. A truly stellar chicken roast at The Ladbroke Arms in Notting Hill (get the mulled wine—best I’ve ever had and nothing comes close).
The breakfast sandwich from Esters, a tiny cafe in idyllic Stoke Newington.
A light, lovely fish and a bowl of new potatoes in herb oil from Rochelle Canteen.
An unreal coconut and peanut-spiced chicken from a very cool neighborhood spot, Lucky & Joy.
A soup and salad lunch at Oak & Poppy, which felt posh in the sense that you should be going there with your grandmother on a Thursday (I never did that and none of my grandmothers are alive, but I have a vision).
A vermouth spritz and a gorgeous grilled tuna with long-cooked sherry onions at Morito in Exmouth Market.
Zoe and I went to Brat. We ate buttered sourdough slices as thick as my forearm and I Shazamed a Khruangbin song from my stall in their dimly lit bathroom. Success? We balled out—and by that I mean, before deciding to pick the expensive entree and add on dessert, we continuously justified our choices by exchanging comments like we deserve this… and think of all the dinners we would have spent money on in NYC by now? Math!
A steady stream of pastries from Jolene, Ottolenghi, E5 Bakehouse, Violet Cakes..and breakfast tea and scones with clotted cream from the counter at Harrods, my one allotted tourist treat per month.
Seville
Cravings indulged for my favorite Spanish dishes at restaurants throughout the city: jamón ibérico, fluffy basque cheesecake, patatas bravas, fried eggplant with honey, enormous extra-garlicky gambas in shells, fried cod bites, pementos de padrón, more jamón iberico.
Otherwise, Lebanese food at Fatouch, American brunch classics at Billy Brunch, and a few simple AirBnB kitchen meals to boost our intake of actual vitamins and nutrients after days of the above.
Everything Else!
Reading:
- .
In the restful houses of women who live alone by
. Woof…this one.
“When I look at most of the women I know who live alone, it doesn’t mean they don’t feel loneliness. I think loneliness exists in some pocket of the soul even if you are lying next to your soul mate. It means that despite what they might feel, they’re living their life in the closest approximation to what makes them happy, and are proactive in how they fill their time, and understand their desires.”
This delightful little piece on food in fiction. My addition: Julia May Jonas’s Vladimir. Jonas writes a simple scene around a pasta dish to such perfection that I think of it often when writing.
All of the Instagram comments eviscerating the NYT and their decision to publish this piece on parents mourning the grandparents they’ll never be.
A billion years too late, I read Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton. Mixed opinions on this one, but I’m still glad I read it.
Watching:
To be expected, Anora was fantastic. My flatmate saw it the other afternoon and came home breathless, hankering so hard for a cigarette and a glass of red wine (that he proceeded to sip whilst sitting half-out the window)—and if there isn’t a more perfect reaction. See it if you haven’t yet.
I haven’t gotten over The Substance. Completely, fantastically unrelenting.
Gave in and watched Nobody Wants This. The show is bad, but Adam Brody made me blush so hard through my smudged computer screen that I watched until the very last frame. Seth Cohen girls forever.
I saw Cabaret on the West End and my mind was blown from the moment we entered the Kit Kit Club and were handed free shots of schnapps. Brilliant revival—if you’re in NYC or London, you must.
Obviously the Chalamet, Patel, Allen White, Mescal lookalike contests.
Listening:
I am once again unable to stop listening to Fleet Foxes? Happy winter.
Spotify made me a really sweet, easy Wednesday daylist and I had to save it.
Buying:
A linen Bou Soie scrunchie from Broadway Market and I’ll say it….huge accessorizing win. Instantly elevates an outfit.
So. many. Muji candles. to make my chilly basement bedroom not feel quite as drafty and damp.
A perfect, well-priced quilted jacket from one of the less-popular shops in Notting Hill (that I sadly couldn’t point to again on a map to save my life).
everything i know about love is currently my subway book! much to discuss!
protect jake at all costs <3