Resolutions

My 2025 resolution (first I’d made in years) was to learn to poach an egg. I got there by about February, then ran into problems of scale; it’s easy to poach an egg for yourself, and you can just about get a 2nd one out for someone else before the first gets cold, but for anything more than that you need more than one pot of boiling water at a time, and (I discovered), I’m just not going to go that far to serve poached eggs to my family, when I can fry several eggs at the same time instead.

That said, here’s my working-from-home-lunchtime-poached-egg recipe: in a hot iron skillet, saute half a shallot till it’s fragrant, then add half a cup of frozen peas and half a cup of frozen corn. Stir ‘em all up until they’re hot and ready to go, and tip them into a bowl. Meanwhile, have your pot of salted water boiling; when the peas, corn and shallot are ready, poach your egg (don’t forget to stir up a vortex with a fork before dropping your egg into the water; that’ll keep the white from going all squiddy, in addition to giving you the chance to cook with a vortex). Once it’s poached, drop your perfect, non-squiddy egg onto the peas/corn/shallot, then add a helping of chili crisp(1), a tablespoon of fried onions, and a twist of salt and pepper. Enjoy!

This year, I have two resolutions: one, to buy a velvet suit, and two, to send out my newsletter as close to fortnightly as I can manage. Good luck to me!

Holiday Reading

I first read Mary Stewart when I was 12; my mother wanted to reread her Merlin series and bought herself the first three books, and then pressed them into my hands. I vividly remember Stewart’s description of a poisoned apricot bursting against a stone wall on a hot day because the scene was so spectacularly rendered; it is one of those moments from a book that sticks with you for no reason other than that it is so perfectly described you can imagine it down to the sound of the wasp buzzing nearby.

Vivid description, as it turns out, is one of Stewart’s stocks-in-trade as a writer. When, as an adult, I discovered she got her start writing midcentury thrillers (aka “romantic suspense” but no one calls the Bond novels romantic suspense, do they?), I was uncertain: would they, like so many from that era, be disappointingly vapid and vaguely (or even outright) sexist? Happily for me, the first I read was This Rough Magic, a Greece-set caper involving dolphins, Shakespeare and a very compelling love interest: in short, it was not disappointing, not vapid, and about as un-sexist as possible for the 1960s.

Stewart’s thrillers center their female protagonists’ feelings and experiences, give them agency and brains and, usually, a compelling love interest (some more compelling than others). What always gets me about Stewart, however, is her clear love for the natural world; the same vividness that caught my attention when I was 12 remains as powerful now. I reread four of her thrillers over the holidays, and while some have aged better than others (Madam, Will You Talk has a lot going for it, but the Nazi plot is pretty weak), I have found all of them worth revisiting again and again. My recommendations, if you’re looking for a good starting point:

• The Ivy Tree (her most gothic and my favourite)

• This Rough Magic (dolphins AND Shakespeare AND Greece!)

• The Wind Off The Small Isles (a novella with all the Stewart trappings, but half the length; a really good place to start if you’re not sure) and,

• The Crystal Cave (Stewart’s turn to magic and King Arthur)

Other Holiday Reading

I busted though a fair amount while I was off for the holidays; I’m working my way through The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich, but it’s (obviously!) heavy-going, so I read a fair number of lighter books as well. Of these, Let’s Make A Scene by Laura Wood was my favourite. It’s a sweet, second-chance romance about two film stars who can’t stand each other, but have to fake-date to promote the film they’re making…. a late sequel to the cult-hit film they made together years earlier, and the reason they hate each other. The characters are well-realised and gorgeously drawn, and the author clearly did a lot of research into what goes into making films, all of which is beautifully rendered on the page.

Just One More Thing

Notes

1. UK friends, this is the best chili crisp I’ve found.

Thanks for reading! There’ll be more book news anon; in the meantime, happy 2026!