The crumbs: what was cooking in January, 2025
The first crumbs of 2025!
Hi there! Happy Lunar New Year for yesterday. 🐍🌙 And welcome to the end of January.
There’s some weird but cool space stuff going on at the moment. Primarily, there’s a ‘planet parade’ taking place, where the planets of our solar system come into alignment and can be viewed in the night sky. While all the planets will be present by 28 February, it will be hard to spot them if you live in southern Australia. So now is a great time to get outside with binoculars, telescope, or just the naked eye and do some planet and stargazing.
At the moment, I can see Mars and Jupiter quite easily from my backyard around sunset, which is gnarly.
And what else has been happening this month? Let’s dive in.
What was cooking in January
January was the month where I finally started cooking regularly again, after a very strange 2024. A free subscription to an exercise app brought with it many inspiring and most importantly at the moment, easy recipes. It also feels good to eat anything other than carbs, after two weeks of moving house and the lapse in a regular diet that just has to come along with that. I’m looking forward to getting back into more intricate cooking in the weeks to come, but this is a good place to begin.
Stand out meals out include a trip out to Persian restaurant SalamaTea – I’ve written about it before and was happy to finally introduce my boyfriend to it, with a scrumptious banquet dinner.
From one social enterprise to the next, with a feast at Free to Feed in Fitzroy North. I attended an Egyptian and Eritrean Feast with a couple of friends. Free to Feed run summer and winter communal feasts, where you’re seated at tables with friends and strangers. The food was excellent, although a few extra bodies at the table made sharing out the servings a bit difficult. I’m keen to go back for a cooking class at some point in the future.
And ending on Lunar New Year celebrations, which involved journeying to a larger suburb to explore their street food offerings. Making some hard decisions about what exactly to choose, entree ended up being a Korean coin cheese waffle containing cheddar and mozzarella, and a Sri Lankan ‘hopper’ that only cost ten dollars, was filled with curry and crumbed chicken and was entirely delicious.
I always feel so lucky to live in metropolitan Australia, where there is a beautiful melding of cultural celebrations on the calendar, and of course delighted by the food that comes with it.
What was booking in January
Books read
A bold statement to begin. This is the year where I finally make a dent in my TBR pile! I currently have not only a whole bookcase devoted to TBRs; there’s a pile languishing beside my bed (not to mention my digital TBRs as well).
Madwoman by Chelsea Beiker
Coming from an unstable upbringing, Clove has created the perfect family life, with two beautiful children and a dependable husband. She may have a bit of a shopping addiction, a wellness obsession and occasionally be pushed over the edge slightly due to the antics of her kids, but aren’t all mothers? Then, a letter arrives from a women’s prison in California, threatening to reveal her past and unravel her life. I’m really enjoying this sub-genre that I guess can kinda be described as ‘woman has children and madness creeps into her life’ and along with Nightbitch, this is another great example. And it’s funny, to boot. Read it.
The Season by Helen Garner
I’m always keen for a new Garner, but The Season didn’t get to me quite the way her diaries did. On surface level, it’s about Garner, now in her eighties, following the trajectory of a stellar season for her youngest grandson Alby’s (16) Aussie Rules team. Dive a little deeper and it’s a meditation on an ageing grandparent connecting with her grandson (very much on his level), while she still can. Garner’s observations and trademark attention to detail are very much present and it’s an engaging and easy read, but there’s a bit of hero worshipping of the sport (which is not without its controversies) and the men or boys in this instance who play it, that just bored me a little (and I like watching AFL, live at least, and vaguely follow the league). Still worth picking up, however.
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Man, this book is exactly what I ask out of a summer read. Despite Kristoff being local to Melbourne and hearing about his other books, this one dropped into my lap out of nowhere and reading it was a great ride. It follows the life of ‘the last silversaint’ Gabriel de León, a warrior in a three decade’s long war of humans against vampires. There was definitely a bit of ‘vampire fatigue’ in the late noughties thanks to Twilight, and we all needed a well deserved break, but it feels like they’re back in vogue and I’m very much here for it. I’ve already downloaded the second book, which I’ll dive into as soon as I finish Onyx Storm.
Playground by Richard Powers
And finishing up with a book that was excellent, but took me far too long to finish, as it’s about as far away from a summer’s read as you can get. Playground draws together the lives of four different characters – Todd and Rafi, friends from high school, Ina, the woman they both fall in love with, and expert diver and scientist Evie Beaulieu. It takes us from the streets of Chicago and Montreal, to the island of Makatea, in French Polynesia. Featuring all of Power’s trademark themes – technology and its effect on us and the world, wild nature, science, extremely complex relationships – it’s well worth a read, but just maybe not in the depths of summer when you brain may just wants to switch off and read thrillers, romance and fantasy. I dunno, books that are less “state of the world” and just a bit more fun.
Currently reading and listening to:
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (hard copy)
For Life by Ailsa Piper (audio book)
Books bought (too many)
Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros (hard copy)
Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff (eReader)
Find your creative courage by Clare Bowditch (audio book)
The Enchanted Life by Sharon Black (audio book)
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff (eReader)
Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, The Flesh, and L.A. by Eve Babitz (hard copy)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (hard copy)
What was screening in January
It’s been great to get back to the cinema to catch a couple of flicks. I’d honestly go every week if I could, but sadly, life often gets in the way.
Anora (2024) is entirely not suitable for work and while Mikey Madison is excellent in it, I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel after watching it. It’s funny at times, fills you with despair at others, then ends and leaves you feeling a bit battered and bruised. Elevator pitch is an erotic dancer spends a whirlwind week with the son of a Russian billionaire; but things take a bit of a downturn when his parents come into the picture. If anything, it was a solemn reminder of how awful it is to have your heart trampled on at the very tender age of 23.
Companion (2025) on the other hand is mostly totally fun romp. A group of friends spend what seems like an innocent weekend at a lake house. Blood is spilled and things start to spiral out of control. Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher are both excellent in this. I had a great time watching it on a 40°C day and it only ran for 97 minutes, which these days feels like a gift from the gods.
In case you missed it
Here’s a round up of this month’s posts – five Thursdays meant five posts, although I lied slightly about taking the first week of January off.
Kicking off the year with some thoughts on goal versus value setting.
Here’s the lowdown on a night spent in the wild… sleeping under a tarp, rather than a tent!
A satirical post on just exactly how you should wind down for the day, which is now one of my most popular posts ever, haha.
And a round-up of some more thought-full books, igniting that new year spark for just a little while longer.
I’ll leave it there for this month. I’m looking forward to February – there’s some nice nature times planned and some of my favourite regular hobbies resume.
I’ll catch you next week. ‘Til then, stay well, well-read and especially well-fed.
-Celine
PS: If you enjoyed reading this, I’d love a ‘like’ or even a comment on this post, as it helps surface it around the Internet.
Most recent ‘crumbs’:
It's wild that just saying a movie is 90ish minutes is such a selling point now. I don't know why studios haven't latched on to that more.
The variety of food looks very exciting and agreed about the thrill of living in such a multicultural hub like Melbourne.
I sure love some crumbs! I've just jumped on board the Rebecca Yarros train and while I've only read Fourth Wing so far, I'm keen to hear what you think of the latest. And wishing you best of luck with the TBR pile...