Some Things to make: marinated bean antipasti and cold ramen salad

Plus: what I think you should read this summer

First of all, I would like to acknowledge straight up that I seem to have missed the height of the London heatwave with this topical “no cook cooking” content. But here is the honest truth: I was too warm and uncomfortable to sit here and write this newsletter. The only place in this country that has AC is Sainsbury’s. The only thing we were capable of doing was watching Wimbledon and Glastonbury on TV, on the coach, in the nude.

Regardless, a throw-it-together recipe is always handy, and given it is currently only July 2, I suspect that’s not the last we’ve seen of 34 degrees this summer. (I am trying to leave aside my work on climate here, so will offer no further commentary. But please do not be stupid enough to go for a lunchtime run during a heatwave, regardless of your fitness level. That is not tough, it’s dumb.)

For these times, some strict rules: no cooking, bar putting the kettle on. Chopping is fine but should be minimal. Small portions are ideal. Temp should be room to fridge-cold.

First, I recommend a marinated bean salad, which can be repurposed later in the week to be tossed with cold pasta, folded into a wrap, or just layered on hummus. (This loose but delicious concept is inspired by Bold Beans, a great bean cookbook!)

Buy some supermarket antipasti (semi-dried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, olives). Buy some white beans (I went for a jar of giant cannellini.) Buy a cheese: I went with ricotta. (Feta is also good.) Buy a lemon. Get some herbs of your choice, perhaps some nuts. Now toss it all together, crumbling the cheese, and seasoning it liberally with the lemon juice and zest and lots of salt and pepper, and adding more olive oil if you don’t have enough in the antipasti packets. Let it sit to marinate (but don’t bother if you’re in a rush), and add in any herbs last minute. Eat it with fresh pita or just with a spoon. It’s not new, it’s just good!

Finally, for cold ramen salad, cook some instant ramen noodles using boiled water from a kettle poured into a heat proof bowl. When it’s cooked, rinse it in cold water; if you can, put a few ice cubes in. Meanwhile, roughly slice any raw crunchy veg: I would go cukes, cherry tomatoes, and radishes. Put them into a bowl and make a quick nuoc cham dressing: equal parts lime juice to fish sauce (for one, perhaps you only need a tablespoon of each), plus a dash of maple syrup or honey or just caster sugar, and a tiny bit of chopped chilli and grated garlic. Ginger is good too if you have it.

For dessert, I am a big fan of sliced fruit on ice (though if I wasn’t having people over, I’d just eat it out of the packet), or any homemade ice cream, which require no cooking. But this cheaty lemon tiramisu is scam artist easy, and I might swap the squirty cream for greek yogurt lightly whipped with some double cream, and eat it late at night when the heat’s come down¹.

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Recommendations: A summer reading list!

I’ve been reading a lot of “buzzy” books lately, so I was delighted to see a couple reading lists that went back to basics and recommended the books that were tried and tested hits—not so much “easy” reads (though here’s what I recommend on that front) as immersive ones², the kinds of books I remember from my parents’ bookshelves as a teenager. These are books that scratch that itch.

I love the idea of summer reading, first of all because it harkens back to a seasonal lull that grown ups rarely get to experience once they leave school. The idea that you’d inherently have more time and energy for immersive reading in the summer seems slightly unlikely, but I love the nostalgia inherent in the idea, and the idea of ebbs and flows in reading energy³.

I thought of the books that fit into this category for me, and they were really just a list of my long-time favourite novels, full-stop: the small handful of books that I have read more than once from the age of 15 onwards⁴, many of them imbued with distinct memories of where and when I read them (my patio in Toronto, the Paris metro, my parents’ couch in Calgary). There are definitely patterns here—many of these books have links to my Mom and Dad’s hometowns and our family bookshelf, and I’ll admit that even the books that aren’t Canadian still feel (to me) Canadian-esque: epic tales of 20th century families shaped by fate and circumstance, with dark secrets, atmospheric writing, and a surprising emphasis on the 1970s.

Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay

Basically unknown outside of Canada, Elizabeth Hay is a writer whose books I wish had made it fully over to the UK. This is a murder mystery slash love story set in Saskatchewan and Ottawa I have read again and again. The opening scene is my favourite of any book I’ve ever read. In journalism school, we all read Hay’s Late Nights on Air, about a radio station in Yellowknife in the 1970s, but I prefer this one. My second runner-up is her book A Student of Weather.

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

My Mom’s favourite movie is the English Patient, which is a very sexy movie (nice one Mom—her other favourite is the Talented Mr. Ripley), which is why it first occurred to me to read this at like, 12 years old. But the book is even more lush, romantic, and dangerous. Feels like sinking into a hot bath. I also like Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion, about 1920s Toronto, but for me most of his others are too much of a good thing. (He is living proof your writing can be too cinematic.)

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This book originally came recommended, somewhat surprisingly, via my Dad—who grew up in Windsor, the Canadian end of Detroit, essentially, where this book is mostly set. This is the ultimate Immigrant to America Family Epic, with a before its time diversion into gender identity, but it’s also about Greek Americans, Detroit, Prohibition, White Flight, World War I, and so much more.

Lives of Girls and Women (or any of her books) by Alice Munro

Alice Munro has been my favourite writer since 2013, when I raced through nearly all of her books during a spell of homesickness while I was living in Denmark—this was the year she won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her writing is so exquisite my first case for reading Munro was always that if you read her before bed, you’ll have interesting dreams. I always feel like I’m in the hands of an absolute master.

Unfortunately, once Munro died, it turned out she had failed to protect her own daughter from her pedophile partner, and had horrifically mined this tension for her own writing (among other things.) If you’re a Munro reader, you’ll know how utterly disturbing this was. It wasn’t just the horrific details, but her baffling behaviour. How could one of the greatest feminist writers of all time have sacrificed her own daughter, and then attempted to weaponise feminism in order to justify her behaviour? It was also disturbing because the whole sorry saga felt lifted from an Alice Munro story— she seemed, suddenly, like the kind of contradictory and morally shocking character only Munro herself could write. Some people will not want to read her after this, and quite understandably. But this New Yorker article about her and her daughter is the best I’ve read yet to prepare you either way.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Opera, intrigue, Stockholm syndrome! I actually own an annotated version of this book, courtesy of my friend Sofia.

Barneys Version by Mordecai Richler

A Canadian classic. As the daughter of an Anglo Montrealer (admittedly, a non-Jewish one), I was raised from afar on Richler’s Jacob Two-Two books (on my seventh birthday, my Mom announced that “it was time” and marched me to the book store), and buttered hot dog buns⁵. I’m sure the endless cheating and schmoozing and many of the jokes in this book dates it, but as a mystery, a tale of an unreliable anti-hero, and a bitingly funny take on both ego and 20th century Montreal, it’s just a classic⁶.

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

It’s a classic for a reason. Bitingly funny, hopelessly romantic. If you’ve never given it a shot, you’re missing out. (Keira Knightley has good taste, people, see Atonement below.)

Atonement by Ian McEwan

My parents had this on their bookshelf when I was in middle school (it first came out in 2001) and I read the sex scene (in the library!!!) once a week for years. Look, this is the ultimate nerd’s sexual awakening. Eventually I got around to reading the entire book and shockingly the non-sex bits were just as good. I’ve never really loved another McEwan, just this one.

The My Brilliant Friend books, Elena Ferrante

I read these four books early on when I moved to London, and each time I finished one, I went to the book store to get the next one. Epic, addictive, and intense, they totally live up to the hype.

If you have any summer reading recommendations in a similar vein, please let me know! I have been pointed towards Pachinko and almost everything by Barbara Kingsolver, which are now on my list.

1. Although I said at the top there was no turning the oven on in this newsletter, I must say the other week my brother and I roasted strawberries—charred them a little, even!—after tossing them with grated ginger, cracked black pepper, a squeeze of lime and only a tiny sprinkling of sugar. Stirred through Greek yogurt they were decadent and more complex than you might expect; if I’d had more time I would have done them as mini trifles with crumbled shortbread.

2. The ones I liked were Anne Helen Petersen’s and Pandora Sykes’. Both are paywalled, but if you are really into reading about books, these are my favourite newsletters to follow.

3. A funny thing here is that they are very committed to these “seasonal” aspects in the publishing industry. I was told repeatedly that my book is a “spring” book, which is supposedly when people read serious books about serious things, unlike the summer, when they read blockbusters, and the autumn, when they purchase celebrity autobiographies. Sure, I guess?

4. This is the guardrail that prevents me from suggesting the books I hoovered up multiple times pre-high school: Harry Potter, the His Dark Materials trilogy, and the first three Jessica Darling books, which are amazing and I would like to write a whole post about.

5. The quality of Montreal-style bagels in Calgary, Alberta around the turn of the millennium was not worth humouring, unfortunately.

6. I’m surprised myself to report I’ve never seen the movie. I hear it’s good?