what’s to eat #40
I used this method instead of a recipe for biscuits, which is beginning to feel strikingly apt as a metaphor for life right now. No recipe. Barely following the rules. Outcome unknown. Fingers crossed for something edible.
Author: erinwrote
on that life I always wanted
Over the last five or six years, my constellation has expanded, the points of light farther flung, moving ever outward. But the weight, the gravity of the galaxy remains. There is no escaping yourself. Recent chapters of my life have seen travel like I hadn’t expected, but that I embraced with the zeal of a child offered an unexpected dessert–that’s for me?!–probably undeserving but jumping at the opportunity, spoon poised for attack, in knowing haste. I’ve seen my fair share of visa-related riots, people crowded around the speaker panel, lunging towards the glass and banging with their fists, arms outstretched, frantically waving white paper visa applications like so many seagulls flitting madly around a dumpster, shouting at the tops of their lungs about trips that should have started 3 days ago, and the ineptitude of the staff and the obscene processing delays.
mid-week link love
Hopefully when you read this, I’ll be somewhere in Kenya, fresh covfefe in one hand, bagel with cream cheese in the other, and sushi in the… other? Below are a few links to see us both through the rest of the week. Here’s to Rest & Relaxation, or getting nearer to it, anyway.
on Somali fashion: Hargeisa women’s edition
Fashion in Hargeisa is reliably modest. Lest you conclude, however, that it’s boring, allow a group of young professionals to prove you otherwise. Herewith, images and a few words on beauty, confidence, and modesty, from some intelligent, stylish, and fierce Somali women. Says Salwa on confidence: ” I wasn’t born with confidence. I wasn’t confident when I was very young. I think with experience, life makes you more confident. You learn how to deal with different situations, and you gain confidence from each one you’ve been in through your life.”
what’s to eat #39
After I climbed atop a chair to snap a few images, they generously offered to share, and we squeezed fresh lime juice over the dish and dipped torn pieces of baguette into the thick mixture, interspersing spicy bites with steaming sips of sweet Somali tea.
on brownies, and women lost
I don’t know exactly when she fell ill, or when she shared the news. Home from Washington D.C. one summer, I mailed her a hand-written letter, an ode to all she had taught me about being a woman, lessons that have nothing to do with fashion or babies, nothing to do with demurring or apologizing, nothing to do with high heels or perfume. In a fit of adoration, I had painted a paperback-sized canvas with acrylics, and sent it with the letter: a single tulip in a slender vase, set behind a brownie on a small white plate.
outerNotes 