Edition 8
On my mind this week:
I want to write about nostalgia and specifically the nostalgia of play. It’s school holidays so my son is happily ensconced in late wake ups, cartoons in his pjs, extra bowls of cereal and most importantly endless hours of potential play stretching out in front of him. I love to watch him vanish into worlds completely of his own construction (or co-created with his buddies) where the characters are bold, the adventures dangerous and the battles where good always trumps evil are won and lost all before lunch. Shrieks of ‘we need more air cover. Call for back up!’ punctuate our days. Part of the joy I am certain is the ability it gives me to collapse on the couch with other parents and talk non kiddo related banter or just drink a cup of tea in peace however most of it is sheer pride and delight that he too has found his own versions of the worlds I lived in throughout my childhood. Play allows us to find versions of ourselves we didn’t know we had, to experiment with language, put on characters we may one day want to be, test our limits, sharpen our negotiating skills and live out grown up moments we see played out around us before we ourselves have to enter the land of adulthood. Creating art I think allows us to re-enter that space of play and that part of our brains deserves a go around the block, often and with abandon. Sometimes as Elizabeth Gilbert would say what stops us from wandering through the cupboard door like the characters in C.S. Lewis’ the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is our own fear. Liz in her book Big Magic talks of welcoming fear into the car rather than dismissing it, allowing it to take up space but not take over the drivers seat where you are firmly planted behind the wheel. Whenever I do this fear seems to encircle itself like a dog taking a nap, settling in a ball, limbs tucked away and then promptly falling asleep. Ahhh I often think time then to play.
I recently found an old toy with remnants of childhood magic embedded in her yellow woolly hair. I had called her Christopher Robin (even though yes I know that character is a boy from Winnie the Pooh) and I loved her with my whole heart. My mum took her once to the doll’s hospital to be restored and I waited with baited breath for her to return, face repainted, hair reattached, dress cleaned. She wasn’t quite the same though afterwards. New and improved with a fresh coat of paint and her ragdoll feet stitched neatly. Still it took a long time for her magic to reappear. To squidge her around the edges and make her mine again. It occurred to me that I loved her not for her perfections but for her flaws, for the adventures we had been on, for the nights she had slept beside me, for all the times I had run around the house holding her cotton stuffed hand and re-velcroed her blue patterned dress. As a 35 year old woman rediscovering her in the back of the musty spare room cupboard, I can still see my 3 year old self. The girl who sat in her first pantomime at interval and refused to leave in case the fairies came back. I couldn’t miss the magic, not even for the promise of an ice cream. Of all the things that I think are sad about life, getting to the end and not having loved like that, missing the magic, would be at the top of my list. Make damn sure you love some one or some thing fiercely, flaws and all.
Deliciously Dolly Alderton (formerly of the indomitable, game changing podcast The High Low and author of Everything I Know About Love which should be immediately gifted to your next birthdaying friend, or for YOURSELF you gorgeous bundle of bones) is hosting a new short form series poddo called Sentimental in the City with Caroline O’Donoghue. If you hadn’t guessed already it’s a review/talk show/nostalgia walk through each season of the culturally iconic, moment in time that was Sex and the City. For all its flaws this TV show holds a huge place in my heart and this podcast is exactly what it says on the tin with a sprinkle of Dolly's acute sensibility for the snort inducing fun in the ordinary of the day.
To accompany your next listening venture Caroline has written this lovely piece in Harper’s Bazaar entitled ‘What Sex and the City taught me about the joy of fandom’. It captured for me the perfection of really loving a piece of art with ferocious abandon and I agree with her contention that it feels like, in this age of endless content, we have lost the ability to truly love something obsessively, remembering every line. Often the temptation is to watch something with a cynical lense and heavily critique it for all it’s imperfections and ‘un-wokeness’. Watching Sex and the City still feels like meeting old friends. I know every line, every street corner, every outfit. To me the show will always be about the friendship between the four women, their conversations around the coffee shop table and it should be noted the ability for Carrie to run effortlessly through New York city while jumping over puddles in sky high heels. When this show burst onto the scene it was so rare for women to actually see real conversations and friendships they felt in their own lives, depicted on screen. It still feels rare in so many ways. I sometimes wonder what it must feel like for men (particularly straight white men) to turn on the TV, flick around and be met with so many versions of themselves. So many ways to have relationships with each other, so many different conversations and characterisations, so many different ideas of mateship. Still in 2021 any time I see something on screen that depicts female friendship in a way I recognise I melt. Hence why I binged all the objectively terrible Firefly Lane on Netflix. The show and its premise were so corny, the wigs diabolically bad, but I stayed for the essence of two forty something women and their lifelong friendship. It has been a long time since I have found a show that I can to return to again and again in times of crisis or uncertainty, like I do with Sex and the City, curling up on the couch with a blanket and a cuppa to let nostalgia and the joy of fandom carrie me away.
Something to listen to:
On an autumn drive to Ballarat a friend put on Cornelia Street live from Paris by Taylor Swift from her 2019 album Lover boldly declaring ‘best tay tay song hands down!’ and I was sceptical. There are many good ones that this prolific songbird has gifted us, her two albums over the last year alone made a comforting backdrop to the otherwise giant dumpster fire that was 2020. However, after taking a listen I came to the realisation that though it was not my favourite Taylor Swift song it was the perfect song for the moment. Driving the wide streets of Ballarat with two mates and a new born baby while the sun set, whizzing past yellowing trees while listening to Cornelia Street was in a nutshell, pure nostalgic joy. It reminded me of early twenties heart break, sticky bar tables, frothy pints of beer, messy make up bags full chalky bits of black eye liner from nights out after your casual job, walking to the station at dusk, head phones in, heels on, crush waiting for you at your destination.
Something to cook:
We recently visited some friends at their 90s beach house for the school holidays and were made this frankly other worldly cake. Lucky for us my pal decided to use lockdown to really perfect her already spectacular baking skills. I have to say that me and this richly spiced sticky date pudding oozing with salted caramel sauce are a match made in heaven. I know it seems like a lot of ginger and vegetabley parsnip but just trust me on this. The ball of energy and zinging taste sensations that is Alice Zaslavsky (@aliceinframes if you too would like to join her virtual kibbutz) is never wrong.
Four Ginger Parsnip Sticky Date Pudding
Taken from Alice Zaslavsky’s wonderful tome In Praise of Veg
Pudding
300 g (10½ oz) medjool dates (see tip), pitted and roughly chopped
2 cups (400 g) grated parsnip, plus 1 peeled and thinly sliced parsnip to garnish
2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
1 cup (190 g) crystallised ginger, sliced
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 cup (250 ml) ginger ale, boiling hot
250 g (9 oz) butter, melted
2 cups (370 g) loosely packed dark brown or demerara sugar
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
4 eggs
3 cups (450 g) self-raising flour
¼ teaspoon salt flakes
Salted caramel sauce (the whole point really)
1 cup (185 g) loosely packed dark brown or demerara sugar
300 ml (10½ fl oz) thickened (whipping) cream
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
50 g (1¾ oz) butter
½ teaspoon salt flakes
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and line the base and sides of a 12-cup (3 litre) cake tin or high-sided baking dish.
Pop the dates and grated parsnip into a mixing bowl, along with the grated, crystallised and ground ginger and the bicarbonate of soda. Pour the boiling ginger ale over. Pause to inhale. This is serious aroma-therapy. Leave for 20 minutes to soften and cool.
In a large mixing bowl, introduce the melted butter, sugar and vanilla to each other using a wooden spoon. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the parsnip and ginger mixture, then fold in the flour and salt until just combined.
Spoon the mixture into the cake tin. Arrange the parsnip slices over the top of the pudding with some artistic flair. Bake for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the pudding comes out clean. If the top looks like it’s colouring up too quickly, cover with foil for the last 15 minutes or so. Leave to cool in the cake tin on a wire rack.
Combine all the sauce ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring often, until the sauce comes to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for a few minutes until it thickens and turns from blonde to bronde. Spoon the warm pudding into serving bowls, then pour a generous ladleful of warm sauce over the top.
Tip: Medjool dates are bigger and softer than the regular dates found in the baking section. Look for them in the fresh food aisle at your local greengrocer or continental delicatessen.
And that is it from me this week. I wish you some delicious couch time with a piece of your own precious fandom or even more delightfully good conversation with a very old friend where you can relive moments in various hues of nostalgia and look forward to making more.
Love Tonts x
Ps. Just before I forget Suggestible poddo is out again this week and we talk my favourite poet Mary Oliver, the film version of The Dry by Jan Harper, Kitty Flanagan's new comedy show Fisk and Mighty Ducks: Game Changers.
I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I write today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay my respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.
