Eat, play, love
Can we journey into other worlds by eating our way through the stories we love?
In this roundup…
🤔 The power of the secret supperclub, and the impact of taste-memory
Keep reading (or scroll to each section) to learn more!
“If you are more fortunate than others, it is better to build a longer table than to build a taller fence”
One of the earliest foods I ever remember wanting to eat from a book was Edmund Pevensie’s turkish delight from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
When Dexter - one of my favorite book-based TV shows - ended in summer 2013, I was so devastated to say goodbye to the characters, I decided to throw a theme party in their honor. I went all-out for the finale, clingfilming parts of the apartment to mimic Dexter’s “kill room”, adding paper plates I’d put “blood spatter” on with food coloring, donuts, and blood orange juice served with tabasco-splashed eggs (IYKYK). I went online hoping to learn how to make edible marzipan “human” fingers (with a rainbow-nail manicure, like Season One’s villain’s calling card). I tried to find a miniature bathtub that I could toss a blonde Barbie doll into with a blood-red beverage, so I could call it “Dead Rita Punch.” I even made Dex’s blood slides by cutting sheets of see-through homemade candy - each one painstakingly hand-painted with a drop of red food coloring, neatly propped into a small wooden box (normally a box for my watercolor paints), as the trophy case.
The year before, I’d held a “Feast of Ice and Fire” viewing party for the Season Two finale of Game of Thrones. I designed themed invitations and the menu (created with a little help from my talented and equally-obsessed friends) included skewered honeyed dormice (sausage rolls disguised as mice), edible gold leaf-covered chilli-chocolate dragon’s eggs (so accidentally hot that my guests almost breathed fire), Dothraki horse hearts (strawberry cupcakes wrapped in red marshmallow fondant, shaped into hearts), and chocolate cake pops presented as heads on stakes.
It’s been a while since I had the time to cook up a fiction-themed meal - I even once hosted a charity dinner at a local restaurant, inspired by the Wizarding World - but one thing I have absolutely no desire to recreate IRL is Soylent Green, hah! Have you ever cooked the food from one of your favorite stories? Attended a meal inspired by a fictional feast? Tell me about it in the comments!
🤔 The Perspective: Thoughts that make me go “hmm”
As fun as it is to enjoy depictions of food in fiction, actually eating while consuming it may not be so great for us. Chowing down while watching TV, for instance, can make us more prone to over-eat - and make us feel less satisfied with the food in general, since it distracts us, leaving our other senses overstimulated. Another study suggests that eating while reading can actually make you more inclined to agree with whatever you’re reading. (Note to self: consider how to add snacks to my next written pitch? 😉)
If you live in Dubai and use social media, you’ve probably noticed the rise of the supperclub in recent years. I attended two incredibly special ones during the last six months - one of which you can learn more about in “The Character” section below, and the other of which was, unexpectedly, one of the loveliest and most memorable evenings I’d had in a long time: Carnistore’s intimate Shutters Down experience.
There is something uniquely intimate and rewarding about breaking bread with strangers. Wanting to do so is partially wired into our DNA. It also releases endorphins, while increasing feelings of satisfaction along with the magic of human connection. In this typically overstimulating modern life, where we so often operate with half our attention constantly pulled away by notifications, lights, and endless noise, being in an environment like that of a supperclub every now and then can force us to be more present - and do us a lot of good in the process.
Considering how closely food is tied to our emotions and memories - and how those can weave into our socio-cultural existence as well as our identities - in some ways, experiencing a powerful taste-memory moment can be thought of as creating a portal. One that, down the line - when we get a whiff of that same scent and flavor elsewhere in the future - can take us right back to that original moment in an instant. So the next time you go out for a meal with someone that really stays with you - the kind that also feeds your soul - just remember that if you feel it with all of your senses, you may be creating a mind-based doorway that can take you back there someday.
🗺️ The Scene
I enjoy writing from different cafés, hotels, libraries, and workspaces around the world - and rating them for their “writer-friendliness”. The Yuppie Bookstore Café is a former bookstore transformed into a restaurant-café, literature salon, and jazz club in Taipei, Taiwan. The venue was designed to pay tribute to the Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel (simply because the owner is a fan), and its beautiful red entrance certainly makes for a striking scene! Once you’re inside, the quirky and dramatic vibe continues, from a painting of the Alice in Wonderland March Hare on the exposed-brick wall, to 1930s and Art Deco elements, stag heads above the lights, and tall windows draped with long curtains, mismatched furniture, and a very “vintage Paris” vibe. Also known as the “Art Reading Café,” it’s a little hard to find at first - you’d never stumble across it if you didn’t know where you were going - but that just makes it feel all the more like a hidden gem. By day, it’s quite peaceful, and by night, it comes alive with live music. They also host events here, from lectures to film screenings. Last time I visited, there was an event focused on educating and inspiring keen travelers to take an adventure to Peru.
📍Da’an District, Taipei, Taiwan
💰 Appetizers begin at NT$120, mains from NT$400+ and drinks from NT$180. It’s free to enter unless there’s a show on, in which case the entry fee is around NT$400.
✈️ The Setting: Destinations to help your mind (and body) wander
My talented friend Aneesha Rai - a magazine editor by day who is currently working on a novel that won her a place in the 2023 ELF Seddiqi Writers' Fellowship, and had her manuscript shortlisted among the top 100 for the 2024 Bath Novel Award 2024 - revisited London this spring. While there, she went to Books For Cooks.
This charming little bookshop in Notting Hill was founded in 1983 by a former nurse called Heidi Lascelles. Although Heidi was described as “neither a trained cook nor professional bookseller,” the shop began with a mission to stock as many cookbooks as possible, from every corner of the globe. As it expanded, Heidi installed a kitchen in its new, bigger quarters, where customers could test out the recipes in these books and bring them to life.
The show is now owned and run by Rosie Kindersley - a former customer-turned-employee - and professional chef and cookbook author Eric Treuille. As its website proclaims, “with 8,000 plus books on the shelves, , new titles being published every week and current titles coming in and out of stock and availability every day, a comprehensive, up-to-date, listing is an impossibility.” The staff can, however, provide a current list (and/or recommendations) for specific areas of interest if you just ask - and book orders can be sent anywhere in the world. They don’t just sell recipe books, either - “our stock far exceeds [this realm],” their site explains, “to include foodie fiction, history, biography, nutrition, art, sociology and chemistry as well as a considerable collection of gourmet cards and posters.”
Visitors can sample tasty treats at the test kitchen, from lunch to cakes and coffee, and since new recipes are developed there too, they’ve also published cookbooks with the dishes dreamed up there. Cookery workshops have been held at the venue since 1995, with sessions taking around two hours and involving a chance to cook sample recipes, then feast on the food prepared. Learn more at booksforcooks.com!
🙂 The Character: Inspiring people with a story worth telling
Hailing from Germany and now living in Dubai, Robin Höfer isn’t your run-of-the-mill cook, by a long shot. The multi-award-winning chef discovered his passion for great cuisine very early in life, and went on to win a number of widely-renowned accolades at a young age - before training with lauded chefs in Michelin-starred kitchens, and most recently, launching his own supperclub.
But like the rest of his career, Robin’s supperclub is no ordinary supperclub - it’s a fine dining chef’s table setup that stands out in a crowded market, in a class entirely of its own. I had the honor of being invited to try it just before it opened to the public, and as I took my first bite of the first dish, I knew that I had become a part of something special: the very first inklings of a bright spark’s solo foray into the world, for a chef that will undoubtedly make his mark on the global culinary scene someday.
✍️ The Process: Insights on the craft of writing and editing
Food can also play a really important functional role in fiction. In crime stories, it can be a weapon or cause of death; it can tell us about a character’s culture and the way they live, or what emotions they’re feeling. It can tell us about the society or world the story is in, from what is abundant or highly-valued to how people use it to connect with each other, from family and friends to strangers. There are several questions on this in my world-building guide, which you can find at the link below.
🧠 The Idea-Sparkers, Thought-Stirrers, and Conversation-Starters
A team of startups from the Netherlands, the UK, and the US are working on creating a new type of leather that won’t harm any living animals - and instead using fossil remnants of a dead one: the T-Rex. Yes, as in the dinosaur.
In this modern world that’s often overstimulating with nonstop schedules that leave many of us feeling tired all.the.time, sleep tourism big news in the travel industry these days - and Marriott’s Westin Hotels has teamed up with none other than Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop for a new “sleep training” series.
Sunrise on the Reaping - the second prequel novel to The Hunger Games - came out in March this year… and recently, people were abuzz about a government report IRL that is apparently predicting a 2040 dystopia reminiscent of Panem and its surrounding districts. What a time to be alive.
Thanks for reading!
Until next time,
Yi-Hwa
