I guess cooking is my fandom now?

[dolorosa_12]

These past two weeks have caused a steady depletion of my mental energy, to the extent that I've retreated into a world of chefs and cooking. I've always cooked as an expression of love, and I always find reading cookbooks, chefs' Instagram accounts, and above all interviews and podcasts with professional chefs to be really cosy and relaxing. And so for the most part I've bounced between Nadiya Hussain's Instagram highlights and random interviews/panel discussions involving Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi, or both. (There is some method in this madness: I was given the Jerusalem cookbook as a Christmas present, and the Falastin cookbook as a random gift by Matthias early on during lockdown, so I have been basically swimming in za'atar, pomegrante molasses, tahini, and the other repeat ingredients of the Ottolenghi/Tamimi oeuvre for the past few months.)

My favourite so far was this panel discussion between Tamimi and Ottolenghi several years ago when they were promoting their Jerusalem cookbook. They were constantly asked the most ridiculous things (and people seemed to want them to act as some sort of poster children for Israeli-Palestinian peaceful coexistence, as if their own personal circumstances, friendship and business partnership could somehow be expanded outwards to an entire fraught region; they resisted this as unrealistically sentimental and simplistic), but ultimately it's just an hour of two people geeking out about food and flavour. I feel their pain re: those dreadful premade refridgerated falafel sold in British supermarkets, which are an abomination.

I say that I've only had mental energy for cooking and foodie stuff, but that's not 100 per cent true. I've also read a bit of short fiction, mainly the newly unlocked stories in the current issue of Uncanny Magazine. My thoughts on all are behind the cut — every story is free to read online.



'Dresses Like White Elephants' — Meg Elison. I couldn't quite work out what was going on here. It seemed to be about a drag contest, with wedding dresses worn by the contestants which gave them the memories of the dressmakers, and somehow this act of wearing the dresses unburdened the dressmakers of any painful memories. I found the whole thing a bit incoherent.

'Burn or the Episodic Life of Sam Wells as a Super' — A.T. Greenblatt. A guy with superpowers ends up working as the accountant for a superhero vigilante team. This story hinges on one of my least-favourite tropes (superpowers as a metaphor for real-world oppression).

'Where the Sky Is Silver and the Earth Is Brass' — Sonya Taafe. This was gorgeous, and I absolutely loved it. A Holocaust survivor and former resistance partisan emigrates to the US, and has a demon for a companion. The language was beautiful, and there was so much intricate stuff going on. A really, really satisfying story to read.

'We Chased the Sirens' — Suzanne Walker. Abused, traumatised or otherwise wronged women take to the seas on a ship, seeking to join the mythological Sirens as a release from their pain.

'The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods' — Maria Dahvana Headley. This weaves the experiences and youthful heartbreaks of love with Greek myth, and descents to underworlds both physical and psychological. It wasn't exactly subtle, but it was cleverly done.

What is getting you through the current ... everything?

Comments

[goodbyebird]

Where the Sky Is Silver and the Earth Is Brass sounds wonderful, thanks for the rec :)

Being back at work is a massive help, bringing some much needed structure to my days, and feeling useful again.

I've also finally started back in on some re-watching. Much need for comforting things right now. Last night was Stranger Than Fiction, which still very much holds up.

[dolorosa_12]

'Where the Sky...' is really lovely. I wasn't hugely impressed with the other three stories in this month's unlocked batch from Uncanny, but that one was staggeringly good.

I've been working from home the whole time since the lockdown (and in many ways find it a better way to work than being in the office/library), but I can well imagine that returning to normal working gives structure and purpose.

Rewatching sounds lovely! I'm watching so much new-to-me TV at the moment that I don't have time, but I did do a lot of rereading, which had the same effect.

[falena]

I can relate to what you're describing here....I've been clinging to my sanity spending every waking moment when I don't have to do something reading Generation Kill fic. Ah, the joys of delving into a new fandom 12 years after canon closed and being spoilt by the easy access to loads of high-quality fic.
My plan for the next couple of weeks is to go back to leave feedback on every fic or podfic I have enjoyed. It seems only fair.

[luzula]

Ah, Generation Kill. Yeah, I enjoyed that fandom a lot, too--I can recommend my own long podfics in the fandom, though I never wrote in it.

[falena]

Recommend away! I've got one of yours already lined up for listening, I think. You recorded one of the 'Every Marine a Wolfbrother' stories, didn't you?

Podfic is even better than fanfic, for me. I swear, podfic is what keeps me sane most days.

[luzula]

Yes, I did two of the Wolfbrothers stories, those are great! I also recommend this Nate/Ray podfic which is a fun Western AU. Rare pairing, but the author nails it. Then there's this one which is Ray gen. I got into that fandom being all Nate/Brad all the time, but branched out after a while--Ray's POV is just so much fun to perform.

I'm so glad to hear that podfic is keeping you sane!

(Dolorosa, sorry for taking over your comments like this...)

[falena]

Oooh, Ray-centric stuff, yay. I fell for the boring, mainstream pairing really hard, but I love Ray as a character so much, so anything that has a good Ray voice is golden. Need to track down your second wolfbrother podfic, then.

So far I've listened to only one of yours, that wonderful collab that is Sixteen Days in September. I need to re-listen before leaving feedback. I listened only once, and the first time I'm always too caught up in the story to pay the right kind of attention to leave meaningful feedback. otherwise my comments would all be like 'OMG you guys recorded a wonderful story and made me SO happy. K, thnx, bye'. :P

Yeah, sorry Dolorosa. Gushing about podfic gives me verbal diaorrhea. *g*

[dolorosa_12]

No problem at all that the pair of you have taken over the comments — I'm always happy to facilitate conversations that branch off in unexpected directions!

[dolorosa_12]

Speaking as someone who only writes fic for older, mostly closed canons, I can absolutely guarantee that the authors of all those Generation Kill fics are going to be delighted to get the feedback. It's always wonderful to get comments, especially on older works.

I'm glad you've found something fannish to focus on.

[luzula]

I got your recipe postcard today. Thank you! : )

I have never heard of pomegranate molasses, but it sounds lovely, and now I want to taste it...is that what you used the Persephone tag for? : )

What is getting you through the current ... everything?

Writing fanfic. Petting dogs. Being outside.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad the card arrived — all the others I sent were to the US, which is apparently having a nightmare situation with its postal service at the moment, so I suspected yours would arrive more swiftly.

Pomegranate molasses is lovely, although it's not what I use the Persephone tag for. Basically I use that tag for any work of media that is in some way about a girl or woman descending to the underworld (and now that I think about it, I actually have two Persephone-related tags, so you've reminded me to update this entry with the other one!). So because in my short fiction recaps one of the stories (the Maria Dahvana Headley one) involves women descending to the underworld, I've tagged the post in that way.

Writing fanfic. Petting dogs. Being outside.

All those sound like very wise decisions, and good for the soul.

[bruttimabuoni]

Ooh, tell me - is Falastin good? I love Jerusalem (the cookbook, obvs), but although there are a few staple recipes in there, I don't cook out of it that much. But I could do with some ideas for autumn cookbook wishes.

[dolorosa_12]

I love Falastin, although I would say that like you I haven't cooked hundreds of its recipes yet. I guess it depends what you want to get out of the cookbooks: I'm in a very Ottolenghi-Tamimi place right now, and this week alone I have cooked five dishes from the two cookbooks, but I will go for months without looking at them.

I think it depends what you have as staples in your pantry cupboard — there is a range of herbs and spices that they tend to use in most of their recipes, along with certain sauces (the pomegranate molasses has become a bit of a joke at this point, but obviously there's also tahini, harissa, olive oil, and lemon juice) and herbs. If you normally have those things in your cupboard (or if you don't think it's too much of an excessive imposition to buy them, I'd say go for it and buy the book. If you're like my younger sister, who only enjoys cooking Ottolenghi recipes, but cooks extremely rarely (and thus has a cupboard full of one-off ingredients bought to cook an Ottolenghi recipe, used once and never again), Falastin is probably a bit pointless.

[iberiandoctor]

Glad you've been keeping well, or as well as can be, anyway. Cooking fandoms sounds like the best fandom!

Thanks for the recs, they sound fascinating! I do need to catch on reading; I've just inhaled Traitor Baru Comorant and been re-reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

Re: the current everything, I was saying to a fandom friend that I've been experiencing an unusual amount of anxiety, which is unlike me, and which I'm having lots of trouble admitting to IRL. Returning to work 2 days in the week, and the routine, is helping, as is my exercise routine and watching lots of opera and theatre streams online. And fandom, of course, now and always ;)

[dolorosa_12]

I'm just infuriated with myself because I had been having a reasonably good time in lockdown up until this point (I've been working from home full-time with very little change in my life other than that I don't have to do the parts of my job that annoy me or be in the same space as colleagues I find irritating), and then suddenly I just had a complete collapse two weeks ago.

I'm probably due a Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell reread, but it's such a wintry book to me, and we're just heading into summer in the northern hemisphere right now.

I'm sorry to hear you've been experiencing anxiety — that's awful, and a terrible thing to have to deal with. As you say, some form of structure and routine will probably help with that, and I really hope it does. Exercise, art and fandom are definitely good ways to keep in a good frame of mind.

[merit]

For better or worse, my workload actually went up since March - even if it isn't the most scintillating work, it certainly keeps me occupied during the day. Then I do try to plug the gaps with reading.

[dolorosa_12]

My workload has decreased a bit, but that's partly because I made a huge effort to get all these huge projects done immediately once I started working from home. It had been impossible to do those particular projects in the office due to constant interruptions from colleagues and library users, and I was worried we'd be back in the office in a few weeks, so I worked really hard to finish them. This of course had the end result of leaving me with much less to do as the lockdown has continued.

I'm glad you've got some sort of structure and routine — definitely helpful to keep yourself in a good frame of mind.

[merit]

My work tends to involve more 'team' projects, and two are about to get worse before they get better. The more 'individual' projects were all too brief /stares longingly in the distance. Though at least you managed to get those projects done!

I tried to establish some routines early on. Fortunately the cats also like to suddenly jump up on my distract when I'm /too/ occupied.

[dolorosa_12]

Ugh, you have my sympathies.

Cats sound like the perfect distraction! I don't have any pets, so the only distractions from animals come from random passing birds or squirrels...

[thawrecka]

What's getting me through the current everything is mostly YouTube and writing. Unfortunately my job was a globalisation casualty a month before the coronavirus lockdown killed off a lot of other people's jobs, so I'm job searching and trying not to go quietly mad from it, but I've been trying to divide up my day like my writing was a job just so I can feel like I'm doing something.

I guess I did, technically, start a YouTube channel and self publish two short novels, so I have done things! Even if I feel like I'm spinning my heels and doing nothing.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm really sorry to hear about your job — what an awful thing to happen, and what a terrible time to be trying to hunt for a new job.

That said, self-publishing and starting your own Youtube channel is very impressive, and it sounds as if they've helped to create some structure for your days at home. You're definitely not doing nothing!