strolling through the lit boulevards of the internet

• nina, she/her, late twenties, uk
• likes cooking, sewing, reading, swimming, digging things out of charity shops, crossing things off lists
• this account has basically just become my recipe box
• tumblr | spotify | last.fm | rate your music | pinterest | letterboxd

Comedy

• Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
• Money by Martin Amis
• The Information by Martin Amis
• The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
• According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
• Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes
• A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
• Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
• Molloy by Samuel Beckett
• Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
• The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
• The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
• Queen Lucia by EF Benson
• The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
• A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd

bold = seen live

• belle & sebastian
• los campesinos!
• bombay bicycle club
• big thief
• everything everything
• porridge radio
• sufjan stevens
• mitski
• the national
• alt-j
• st. vincent
• regina spektor
• emmy the great
• vampire weekend
• frankie cosmos
• japanese breakfast
• the magnetic fields
• yo la tengo
• camera obscura
• 'allo darlin

• Ocusoft Foaming Lid Scrub
  • For sensitive eyes. Try instead of miscellar water?
• Purito Daily Go-To Sunscreen SPF 50+ PA++++

in order of book acquisition. under this roof we simp for meera sodha okay

real fast food, nigel slater (this was the first cookbook i ever obtained aged 18 and i more or less taught myself to cook with it which is HILARIOUS because it is objectively not a student cookbook. nevertheless, i am still very fond of it, and it still conjures up images of a glamorous, slightly old-fashioned world of tiny fancy cheeses, ripe apricots from the greengrocer and stylish solo dinners. in fairness it does also have some very useful and cheap storecupboard meals.)

favourites

• parsee scrambled eggs, p33
• baked cod with butter sauce, p55
• mussels with cream and bacon, p76 (not to be dramatic but this would be my final meal)
• anchovy mayonnaise, p95 (i make this with...

• The Long-Winded Lady - Maeve Brennan
• The Idiot - Elif Batuman
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
• In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado
• Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill
• Outline - Rachel Cusk
• Milkman - Anna Burns
• The Wrong End of the Telescope - Rabih Alameddine
• Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk
• Big Swiss - Jen Beagin
• Gingerbread - Helen Oyeyemi
• The Extinction of Irena Rey - Jennifer Croft
• Penance - Eliza Clark

for when someone asks you what you'd like for a present and you freeze and you're like 'I'VE NEVER HAD A LIKE OR DISLIKE IN MY LIFE'

• & other stories hand cream, especially the swedish rhubarb one
• magazines: the gentlewoman, loud & quiet, weird walk etc
• a bookshop gift card
  • i think books are my version of receiving socks as a present. grab whatever frontlist paperback is hanging around in the fiction section of the bookshop, can't go wrong. so this is a useful one to remember
• a new water bottle
• megrhythm gentle steam eye masks
• heat resistant ruler

• my actual IRL standard fancy meal: saag paneer; chaat (via meera sodha's made in india); rice; poppadoms and mango chutney; quality street or daim bars for pudding
• cheese soufflé; puy lentils; steamed runner beans with butter, lemon and tarragon; white wine; crepes with caramel apples and vanilla ice cream, or just the ice cream on its own
• a mezze idea: beetroot hummus (a cafe i like used to do it with sliced radishes and pomegranate seeds on top which was nice); grilled dressed aubergine; stir-fried grated courgette and mustard seeds mixed with yoghurt and sprinkled with smoked paprika; warm pitta bread or simit; shop-bought stuffed vine leaves; olives
• vegetarian mapo tofu; sichuan aubergines; stir-fried pak choi; rice
• too-hot-to-cook meal: summer rolls; big bowl of peanut-tamarind sauce for dipping; korean cucumber salad on the side; cold cold beer
• dream brunch: scrambled tofu with indian flavours and cherry tomatoes; thickly but...

• sandwiches made from shop-bought guacamole and cold cooked salmon, with lime squeezed over
• stir 1 tsp of mint sauce into some natural/greek yoghurt. dip mini poppadoms into it. they are also good with sweet chilli sauce
• not really a treat-yourself snack, but in a similar vein: crunchy lettuce dipped in sweet chilli sauce
• put plastic pre-grated mozzarella cheese between two pieces of bread. spread mayo on the outside. fry until melty.
• the ultimate treat-yourself snack: mozzarella in carrozza. cut up balls of mozzarella. put slices between terrible white plastic bread. squish edges together. dip in milk, then flour, then beaten egg. fry in olive oil. eat it and weep.
• spread tomato puree on tortilla wraps. put lots and lots of grated cheese on top. ...

• A Kumquat for John Keats by Tony Harriso... (my favourite poem of all time)
• Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas
• The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
• The Glass Essay by Anne Carson
• What the Living Do by Marie Howe
• Snow and Dirty Rain by Richard Siken
• The Orange by Wendy Cope
• The Hug by Thom Gunn
• Having a Coke with You by Frank O'Hara
• Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris
• & Forgive Us Our Trespasses by Sinéad M...
• Today by Mary Oliver
• After great pain, a formal feeling comes...
• Self-Portrait as Artemis by Tarfia Faizu...
• Fable by Nicole Callihan
• Tonight, in Oakland by Danez Smith
• Anthem by Melissa Stein
• Warming Her Pearls by Carol Ann Duffy
• Rain by Don Paterson
• Song of the Anti-Sisyphus by Chen Chen
• The Fist by Derek Walcott

kind of an archive since i have obtained so many cookbooks i don't really need to cook from online recipes anymore (see my much more unhinged cookbooks list), but these all still look GOOD

soups stews n curries

• nigel slater's cauliflower cheese soup (i keep forgetting to make it when it's cold enough)
• from nigella lawson: a pea soup which contains an entire head of roasted garlic blended in (!!) and a black bean soup i've been meaning to cook a big batch of for a while
• parsnip and ginger soup
• lablabi (chickpea and bread soup)
• leon corn chowder
• leon squash, corn and bean stew
• butter bean, veg and stuffing stew
• this butter chicken but with paneer instead
• alternatively, sweet potato tikka masala...