Consumption 9

This is a monthly series, published near the end of the month summarizing what I found, ate, watched, googled, and felt this month. New categories added from time to time.

Books Added to My TBR (e.g., books I just learned about that I’m excited to read… maybe)

• Lost Lambs (Madeline Cash)
• Country People (Daniel Mason)
• The Viper’s Nest (Mark Edwards)
• Esther Is Now Following You (Tanya Sweeney)
• Town & Country (Brian Schaefer)
• The Award (Matthew Pearl)
• The Silent Appeal (Janice Hallett)
• And the Corpse Wore Tartan (Stuart MacBride)
• It Could Have Been Her (Lisa Jewell)
• How To Get Away with Murder (Rebecca Philipson)
• Beth Is Dead (Katie Bernet)
• The Heir Apparent (Rebecca Armitage)
• This Is Not About Us (Allegra Goodman)
• The Rest of Our Lives (Ben Markovits)
• The Castle (Jon Ronson)
• It’s Not What You Think (Clare Mackintosh)
• The Parkwood Murders (Chris Chibnall)
• I Can’t Believe I Don’t Have a Boyfriend (Harry Trevaldwyn)
• Sophie, Standing There (Meg Mason)
• The Art of Getting Hammered (Joanna Wallace)

Notable Meals (new recipes, old favorites, and restaurant items we ate this month)

• Vegetarian bacon butty: Real eggs, fake bacon, French butter.
• New York Times ribollita recipe, though I used baby spinach instead of kale, and I made the toast separately and floated it on top of the bowl of soup.
• New York Times chickpea stew. Once again used baby spinach instead of mustard greens, increased the broth to 6 cups, and increased the orzo to 3/4 cup. So so so good. We made it again the next week.

Television, Movies, and Music (watching and listening)

• We finished The Paper on Peacock. Loved, loved, loved this show. It grew on me by the second episode, and now I’m bummed that we have to wait for the next season.
• I saw Freud’s Last Session last spring/summer, but I watched it a second time because it moved from Netflix to Hulu, and we could slip it in before Hulu went away.
• I loved loved loved everything about All of You. The writing and acting are both fantastic.
• It took an episode or two until we were hooked, but we enjoyed The Gold. At first, I couldn’t understand how it was going to have a second season. The story wraps up but clearly more happened after the case.
• I haven’t watched Slow Horses, but we are super into his new show, Down Cemetery Road. I like all of the characters, even the bad guys.
• We’ve watched one episode of The Studio. I avoided it at first because I’m not really into Hollywood and moving making, but it’s pretty funny.
• I love Pluribis as much as I loved Severance. Apple is producing fantastic shows at the moment.

Added To My Ongoing Mix Tape

• “A Girl Like You” (Edwyn Collins)

Tabs I Left Open (things I Googled and left up on the screen)

• A story about CS Lewis and the biscuit tin toy garden his brother made him.
• Tig Notaro tour dates.
• Multiple websites with information about myriorama cards.
• The Wikipedia page for Allantide.
• BBC’s Saturday Kitchen landing page.
• How to make your own Starbucks Iced Via packets.

Micro-Joys

• Seeing a few purple-y states go firmly blue on election day.
• Josh and I were bicycling at the beach, and there were hundreds of egrets standing in the marsh we were riding by. Suddenly, they all took off into the air and flew right at us. For a moment, the only thing we could hear was hundreds of wings flapping over our heads. And zero birds pooped on us in the process. 
• I finally won the final board of one of the card sets in Balatro. I had come close many times before, but had never finished.

Mood

• Feeling end-of-year antsiness.

What about you? Let me know what you’re eating, seeing, listening to, googling, feeling this month.