This beautiful piece by food writer Ruby Tandoh about the pleasure of food in times of crisis will 100% send you running to the fridge (“I can’t stop thinking about food. Everything is falling apart, but all I can think about is the softness of fondant icing when you press in a birthday candle. Refreshing the application form for Universal Credit, I daydream about biting the heads off jelly babies. I scroll through terrible news while thinking about the snap of fridge-cold chocolate.”)
“How do I deal with not having a partner in the midst of the pandemic?” Some sage advice here.
Over on Twitter, the author Hannah Kent has asked for audiobook recs to keep her company while she breastfeeds, and there are some real winners in the suggestions, including Tom Hanks narrating Ann Patchett’s The Dutch House (!!)
We just found the winning ticket for your next Zoom party: a legend called Mia has put together an incredibly comprehensive list of hundreds of games that can be played online, and there are trivia games and card games and puzzles and best yet, they’re all freeeeee
A YouTube channel called Great Big Story recently asked eight filmmakers in eight different countries to report in on how they, their families, and their communities are doing during the pandemic. Needless to say, it’s incredibly compelling viewing, and really helped to push us out of our Australian bubble
Until we can physically travel again, watching this long list of TV shows set in far-flung corners of the globe is quite possibly the next best thing
This is absolutely BANGING
Dig out an old pair of jiffies: The Australian Ballet have just launched three online classes specifically designed for beginners at home
Apparently brown butter is the secret to making all dishes taste delicious and it looks… pretty easy?
A brutally honest essay from the wonderful Emily Gould about the sacrifices women are having to make right now (“Our long-term stability as a family hinges on whether my husband can do the work he needs to do this year in order to keep his salaried job. If there is only enough time for one of us to work, it doesn’t make sense for that person to be me.”)
Some IG recs! This week, Vanessa’s sunk a lot of time into watching this guy do impressions on Instagram and she doesn’t regret a single second (must watch: his impression of a woman ordering her first post quarantine coffee, and this one of a guy who likes to tell everyone that quarantine isn’t that different from his regular life). Meanwhile, Lizzie’s newest obsession is this old guy from Tennessee doing impressions of a teenage girl (not as creepy as it sounds, promise)
This poem about the first lines of emails received in quarantine is pure art (“This is not normal. We're committed to doing what we can. And even though you haven't logged in since 2007, the team at Snapfish wishes you and your family well.”)
We hope everyone has a smidgen of flour left, cos the Australian Women’s Weekly has just released a whole bunch of biscuit recipes from the archives, including Honey Jumbles and Mint Slice (!) and Iced Vo Vos (!!)
If you’re longing to listen to something unrelated to Covid, may we suggest a podcast from NPR called Believed, which centres on the case of Larry Nassar, the Olympic gymnastics doctor who’s believed to have abused over 250 women over several decades? The podcast delves into the past to figure out how Nassar’s crimes went unchecked for so long, and it’s VERY good.
