The Kitchen Table Chronicles - Wintering
Simple joys discovered in the depths of Winter
More film and TV than I think I’ve physically had time for and a sublime David Bowie soundtracked scene. An ever towering book stack. Nourishment that transcends body and spirit. Cautiously optimistic planting. A heavy vinyl haul that landed with me today. The Great Injustice of the Running Out of Waffles as told to us at dinner and other notes from the kitchen table.
The Kitchen Table Chronicles
Notes on good things shared from the place all the best conversations happen, straight from my kitchen table, to you.
Genuine conversation from the kitchen table - school rants.
Our teens frequently have big opinions. Mostly we’re pretty happy that they are quite feisty about ideas (and if it’s causing a total nightmare in parenting, we can see that it’ll be a good trait for them to have when they’re not fighting against us for whatever reason), but rarely are the opinions so big or vocal as about school food offerings.
No waffles - A DISGRACE! OUTRAGEOUS! Queues that are too long, too slow, ordered in a way that doesn’t suit them. Odd combinations of food stuffs. No pizzas on pizza day. As I type this I wish I had been documenting the myriad ways in which the school system has disappointed them in it’s lunch time provision because I have a feeling it would actually make for a pretty good comedy sketch or satirical memoir. They are, of course, privileged to have hot meals provided to them and to have a fairly diverse choice. I will remember these woes for them when mortgages / interest rates / Prime Ministers and the like become the unfortunate events causing dinner time gripes.
Watching
Oh my. A bumper crop. Hunkering down in front of the fire and a free trial subscription to Apple TV has ushered in lots of newness (subscription via the Roku that we bought after the internal software on our TV became so old and outdated it was basically fossilised and stopped working) .
I’m drawing blanks on accurately describing everything right now, it’s like there’s a traffic jam in my brain and nothing is getting through. That’s what we have IMDB for though I guess!? I’ll do my best…
Palm Royale. Stylistically a poolside Mad Men / Wes Anderson styled affair set in the late 60’s. A beautifully dressed (both people and sets) easy going ride Palm Royale ticks all the boxes. It was fun and I’ll be watching season 2 when it comes out.
Prime Target. Only three episodes have aired so far, but I am hooked. A simple premise, maths genius about to reveal something bad guys would really rather he didn’t. I’m not doing it justice really. Found via Leo Woodall’s involvement which leads me to One Day.
I loved One Day. It reminded me a lot of my own youth both via the situation (letters written and stinted catch ups for years as you grow together to someone you end up marrying) and the music. I can’t bring myself to watch the film version because I feel like Anne Hathaway was a poor choice for a northern English girl and the characters seem like they would be massively dislikable. The casting on the Netflix outing was perfection.
Tetris - Did you know the Russians invented Tetris? No. Me neither. The visuals on this are fun (never has a car chase been done better in my opinion) and it’s an interesting and eye opening story with lots of feeling.
Napoleon - I’m not sure what drew me to this but it was more personally involved than a straight up biopic offering. Causeway - is there a bad film with Jennifer Lawrence? Uncle Frank. The Boys in the Band. Goodbye Christopher Robin. She Came to Me. Steve Jobs. Fly Me to the Moon. Life Itself - I liked it until the ending which I don’t buy whatsoever, forgiven for the interesting format of the film. Nosferatu - I didn’t care about the characters, somehow in making everything look beautiful or grotesque (and sometimes beautifully grotesque) the character development was lacking.
Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths. Do you ever watch a film because you hear its soundtrack and think it sounds like it will be magnificent? I do. It didn’t disappoint. The David Bowie dance scene is sublime and dreamlike and that’s kind of the point of the whole film.
On the record player
You may remember from the last writing of one of these that I was trying to decide whether to preorder The Summer Portraits by Ludovico Einaudi. I did. It arrived today and is wonderful. The kind of beautiful that feels like innate sadness and joy all at once and the soundtrack of a hundred summer days spent on the edge of something. No real complexities of life and free as a feather on the wind but also feeling the weight of the universe in your soul (growing years can be like that can’t they?).
Ritual by Jon Hopkins. Rome - The National. Anima - Special edition (not seen it? Go search it out at wherever you buy vinyl from) and Guts by Olivia Rodrigo all turned up today. Thank you Christmas gift money and January sales. I am fuelled creatively for the foreseeable.
And the Bardo soundtrack. How Could I forget that?! Superb.
Towering on the nightstand (because it’s perfectly normal to have a book stack that looks like The Leaning Tower of Pisa)
One Day. I read it hoping that Netflix had grossly exaggerated the ending in the show or else made it up entirely. They didn’t. But there is poetry in it all and it was a good read.
My book stack is threatening to throw itself down like a jenga tower lost to one final brick tug and is in a precarious state to say the least, and yet somehow, I keep on adding to it wondering how long before the inevitable crashing down in the middle of the night. It’s become kind of an exhilarating sport at this point.
Lanny by Max Porter. We met him a while ago at a thing in Manchester and I was blown away by his writing style. Compendium of the Occult (not as dark as it sounds) and others that I’ll save for when I’ve actually read them.
I recently stumbled on an Instagram post (by nomadliterature on Instagram) that introduced the most perfect word that could have been invented for me - “ “tsundoku” - collecting books and letting them pile up - not for neglect, but for the joy of knowing they’re there, full of untold stories”, so, there’s that. It isn’t just me.
What’s going on in the garden?
I’m about to start the tomato and pepper seedlings off. That is it. No more, no less.
I learned the hard way from having towering dead bodies of peas and beans who have outgrown their tiny nursery pots and given up on life whilst waiting for it to be warm enough to be planted out, waiting well into May before now. A hard learned lesson when you’re an optimist that gets excited about the mere whiff of warmer weather and is massively impatient.
Foods on the table lately…
Ibérico ham. A very special Christmas treat of the good stuff. In a salad with melon and pea shoots. And fresh olives. And a home baked focaccia. The preparation of it, the eating of it. The feeling of being transported back to the south of France which is the last place that I ate the dish. A soul nourishingly wonderful thing. Food is always at it’s best when it transcends both body and spirit in terms of nourishment in my opinion. It is such a simple meal, but so beautiful.
Soul nourishing
Ibérico ham salad. I could honestly stop there. By extension, remembering the joy in simple ingredients made into a feast and allowed to shine.
The thrill of finding films, TV, stories and music that fill up my soul and feed my creativity, because without all of that, what is life?
If you know someone who would like to join us at the kitchen table, invite them!
It is February tomorrow. The bringer of false Springs and lighter evenings. The beginning of the garden planting and cautious optimism of bountiful salads and meals eaten outside in the sun. The premise of more books read in open spaces and less Netflix under a blanket becomes a worthy idea. Time “to live for the hope of it all” (you seriously thought you’d gotten through this without a Taylor Swift Reference didn’t you - HA!).
What have you been watching / reading / growing / eating / listening to / nourishing your soul with? If you’ve got something good that doesn’t feature in that list, I would love to hear about that too. Be sure to leave your kitchen table talk in the comments below, conversation very much encouraged.
With love,
V.V