just waded through two inches of dust and dead skin cells to clean my arts and crafts drawer for the first time in THREE YEARS so i’m on a productivity roll
here’s a thread i almost posted to twitter:
some of my favourite memories have to do not only with food but with kitchens. when Ma makes something that must be eaten hot, Didi and i hang out in the kitchen eating a dosa or puri fresh off the stove and keeping her company. she has to make enough for everyone before she can join us in the living room for dinner, so until then we tell jokes, listen to music and sneak food in the kitchen.
during big family dinners the kitchen is where i feel safest. away from my equal parts fighting and curious cousins, away from uncles making dumb jokes and reeking of beer, away from bad TV, it’s the kitchen. where Ma and my aunts are sharing fun life stories while the pulao boils on the stove, where recipes are shared and all i have to do is sit on a stool and listen. and, more recently, where i’m asked questions about my college and career without the slanting, judgemental eyes of men who can only think in terms of what makes me the most money.
the kitchen, where my ex-boyfriend made me a cup of coffee (black, no sugar, because nobody keeps a tin of sugar in a college apartment) a week before we began dating, and told me about his hometown and his favourite film. his kitchen, again, where i sat on the floor in the midst of a panic attack, and he sat with me and scrolled through Instagram until i could breathe again, the compact-ness of the room bringing me back to myself.
the kitchen, where i find myself on nights that i can’t sleep, rooting through the fridge on my own, the only room in my house synonymous with warmth and comfort.
the kitchen, where no matter how many times Didi and i have quarrelled during the day, here we must make peace over pasta. and the kitchen, where after years of craving bubble tea, Rae and i made makeshift bubbles out of sabudana and talked about all the southeast asian food we’d fill our lives with, given the chance.
the first time i brought my college friends home for Christmas dinner, they crowded into the kitchen to hang out with Ma and bug her with stories of our many adventures. and then we huddled around the stove for a group picture, and that will always be my favourite one of us: the people whom i love the most, along with my Ma, next to a pot of hot chicken curry to be poured over korri roti and eaten for dinner later.
yeah. i’m calling it ode to kitchen.
okay, time for mundane pop culture updates!
i finished DARK and here’s my official review:
(i really can’t get into it without spoiling it for everyone, so that’s all you’re getting from me!)
i also read AN ABSOLUTELY REMARKABLE THING by hank green and i was truly baffled by how much i enjoyed it. this must be the first sci-fi i’ve read since my artemis fowl phase back in the day, and i always considered it too much work to invest in alternate realities the way this genre requires you to do. well, i was wrong! i also had some residual distaste for Mr Greens after spending a significant part of my teenage years overidentifying with John Green’s redundant YA novels. but i have to say (without sounding too much like the NYT editorial column) that hank’s novel was a BREATH OF FRESH AIR! and i loved it a lot. 4.5/5
and before that i read THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by kazuo ishiguro, and it positively ruined me. i never thought i’d identify so much with a 60-year-old English butler approaching the end of his life, but here we are! (you are allowed to be concerned, i know i am.)
and i finally, finally started watching it’s always sunny in philadelphia, and the general shittiness is rather appropriate i must say.
(other books i’ve read since our last update: his & hers by alice feeney, the silent patient by alex michaelides, & to end my week of murder mysteries, savage appetites by rachel monroe)
(also i’m on goodreads at goodreads.com/stgiuseppe if you want to be friends 👉🏼 👈🏼)
i am trying to be more active on Instagram! (please dont roll your eyes at me I KNOW I KNOW)
yesterday i posted two stories and maybe today i might do an actual post? who knows? i don’t! i have a general goal of maybe one post a week so let’s see if my anxiety stretches itself to allow for that much
why am i trying to be more active on what is objectively the worst website/app on the planet? well, i’ve been attending a rather brilliant international conference hosted in the Philippines on zoom, and the entire point of the conference was to talk about how we can be good Catholics in the digital age. and after a week of listening to them i’m kind of convinced that just because Instagram is, again, objectively evil and the worst that the internet has to offer, does not mean i can have my own pocket of good within it. so i’m going to give it a shot!
(inb4 my next post is titled I HATE INSTAGRAM & other stories)
and lastly, some plugs:
THE WEEK THAT WAS, an Indian pop culture podcast started by my college senior that is VERY GOOD. their first episode was about sushant singh rajput’s unfortunate death and how the internet has a knack of shifting the conversation away from what we Really should be talking about. they took the words right out of my mouth and how.
listen and subscribe on spotify here
PAISA DREADFUL, a weekly serial fiction newsletter by my friend that started around the same time as this newsletter! it’s sci-fi with some fun real-life parallels to suss out in each installment (and you know when I recommend sci-fi that it’s gotta be good.)
read and subscribe on substack here
ok that’s all, bye
p.s. if you’re enjoying this newsletter please let me know :):