The crumbs: what was cooking in September, 2024
Pierogi, communal eating and Irish authors.
Hello! I’m Celine and I write about books, food, and surviving life in the city with a wild heart. Subscribe for free posts like this one, or join the community for other exclusive writing. Either way, thanks for your support!
And with that, another month of 2024 has reached its merry conclusion.
We’re still kinda waiting for spring to properly land in southern Australia – it has been darn cold, a complete shock to the system after the ‘fake spring’ we experienced in late August.
I love this time of the year, right before daylight savings begins, where there is a nice stretch of light in both the early morning and evening. It’s a very energising time.
I usually do a bit of a spring clean this time of the year, but having recently moved I’ve been dabbling in more of a ‘spring cleaning out’. It’s been nice to get rid of things, although selling stuff on Marketplace is essentially akin to entering Dante’s 10th circle of hell – burning for eternity while people repeatedly pepper you with ‘is this available’, ‘is this available’, ‘is this available’ (I confess I have never actually read Inferno, yet do think a extra few stanzas should be added, to update it for modern times).
Anyway, I digress. Onto the highlights of the month.
What’s cooking and eating in September
September was a busy old month, a mix of meals out and very easy, snacky-type dinners at home. For someone who claims they enjoy cooking, I feel like I’ve done very little of it these last few months (hey, sometimes life gets in the way and it’s been a hectic year).
I did get to make my favourite pizza, which has a topping of caramelized red onion, goats cheese, roasted pumpkin and baby spinach; I usually make the dough too, but was feeling way too lazy, so instead used delicious garlic covered sourdough from my local grocer. Must share the recipe at a later date.
A highlight was eating out with a couple of dear pals at Brunswick’s Eat Pierogi Make Love! Had a grand old time snacking down on ruskie pierogi, with cheese and potato and kielbasa pierogi, containing smoked Polish sausage and cheese. Yum yum, delicious. Anything that is served loaded on sour cream earns my love and trust.
Also enjoyed a meal with friends at Ras Dashen in Footscray. It’s an Ethiopian restaurant, one of the best in the area. I so enjoy the communal aspect of this type of food – ordering share plates, tearing up the fermented injera bread, wrapping it around chunks of meat and veg, soaking up the juices from the bottom of the plate. And it’s always a cheap meal – my boyfriend and I dine on this cuisine every Valentine’s Day (our own delicious subversion of the ‘holiday’). A must order for me is shiro wat, an Ethiopian chickpea stew. Ras Dashen makes it perfectly – soft and (mildly) spicy, just the way I like it.
I’m hoping to make a few more hearty home-cooked meals before the weather (maybe) starts warming up for summer. Particularly if I can incorporate some of the kale from my garden, which is still growing out of control.
What’s booking in September
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
Always exciting to have in your hot little hands the new work of a favourite author. Particularly when it’s on a topic you’re most interested in. Laing came into home ownership in her forties, having always dreamed of having a garden of her own. As she works through the pandemic to restore a walled garden in her Suffolk home, we walk through her garden with her. She explores the history of the garden as a place of tranquility, beauty and too, inequality, privilege and exclusion.
This book isn’t available in Australia just yet (I believe it will be released in Oz by the end of this month). In the interim, you can purchase a copy via British bookseller Blackwell’s. They ship free!
My Brother's Ashes are in a Sandwich Bag by Michelle Brasier
Comedian and actor Michelle Brasier, in her thirty-something years on earth, has lost both her father and her older brother to cancer. She learns that thanks to a hereditary condition, a horrific type (read: all) of cancer may be gunning for her too. So, she chooses to live life large. This memoir is a celebration of just that. I highly recommend taking in her story as an audiobook, read by her of course – you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sing. She also recently featured on Australian Story, an episode worth watching.
Evenings and Weekends by Oisín McKenna
Irish authors really are knocking it out of the park, these days. What is in the water on the Emerald Isle, because I really want to be there, drinking at the source. Evenings and Weekends focuses in on four characters – Maggie, who is 30, pregnant and broke, her anxiety-ridden boyfriend Ed, her best friend and office drone Phil, who is in love with his flatmate Keith, and Phil’s mother Rosaleen, who has cancer and is trying to track him down to tell him for herself, before someone else gets there first. Phil, Keith and their other housemates are evicted from their house on the eve of throwing a gigantic party, it’s as hot as Hades in London, oh and there’s a whale stuck in the Thames. Let the chaos ensue.
Tuesday just gone was of course Sally Rooney day and I’m currently reading her new book, Intermezzo, while having many thoughts and opinions along the way. Will report back soon.
In case you missed it
After a great hiking adventure, September’s publishing here was generally all about Top End Australia.
I ate very well in both Darwin and Katherine. Here’s a quick culinary guide to both places.
A lot of planning goes into a multi-day hike and it can be tricky to know where to begin. Here’s how I approached what I packed, ate and read on the Jatbula Trail.
And sharing some notes from the trail itself, pulled straight from my nature journal.
Stray link(s)
Australian author and journalist Sarah Wilson is serialising her next book on her Substack, This is Precious. It’s a book about ‘collapse’, and as she puts it, ‘it maps out how the hell a tender soul is to actually live a beautiful, human(e) life amidst it all’. This is a topic I spend much of time thinking and reading about, and I’m finding Sarah’s take on it all very interesting, indeed.
The Wheeler Centre are featuring a podcast with Olivia Laing as part of their Spring Fling.
And lastly, life lately
The weather is warming up, and I’m so looking forward to getting back into ocean swimming. I know some people who keep it up throughout winter; dipping a toe in the Southern Ocean at that time of the year is a very feat impressive indeed.
There are a few interesting looking horror films out at the moment – am most looking forward to seeing The Substance with Demi Moore. I’m hoping to watch quite a few horror films this month (it’s how I switch off my mind, lol). Might write up a little report on this at the end of October.
The end has come, in that my 15 year old kettle has finally given up the ghost. Thank you for your service, dear red kettle. I’ve upgraded to a cream Smeg kettle with variable temperature control, a very exciting feature (plus it was on sale, always a win). Expecting the tea game to soar to new heights.
Thanks as always for reading. Hope you also had a nice September.
See you next week as per usual.
Until then, stay well and well-fed.
-Celine
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What was cooking in August, 2024
Making me jealous of Melbourne's food again. I'm sharing your mood for horror movies as well! The Sarah Wilson book sounds especially interesting :)
Ras Dashen sounds incredible! Must add it to the list!