June Diet
strawberries and chamomile, tending to granita, fanny pack life, portrait makeup
At some point, in the blur of the last few months, I was in Good Egg with my baby, and Mika, my friend and the owner of the shop, and I were talking about a baby’s sensory development. She mentioned that she had read once that everything a newborn tastes tastes like slightly rotten strawberries. I was immediately enamoured with this fact - Mika said she learned about it in A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. I ordered a copy, wanting to learn more.
From the book:
A creamy blur of succulent blue sound smells like week-old strawberries dropped onto a tin sieve as mother approaches in a halo of color, chatter, and a perfume like thick golden butterscotch. Newborns ride on intermingling waves of sight, sound, touch, taste, and, especially smell.
I love thinking about that, babies riding on over-ripe strawberry waves. Lucy tried her first strawberry this month, one that tasted like how a strawberries used to taste, and big enough for her to grasp with both hands.
On that note, here is monthly “diet” of things that have either occupied my thoughts, moved me in some way or just felt special enough to share; what I was reading, watching, eating, wearing and visual research that shaped my month as a thank you to paid subscribers.
Last year’s June Diet included two moody summer films (Wanda and Vengeance Is Mine), early pregnancy outfits (cantaloupe collar, where I like to shop for men’s shirts etc.), potato chips as medicine, a trip to the nightie store and an Anne Carson poem for the heat.
Below you will find: Dessert of the month, heatwave diet (including two salads and my recipe for almond milk granita), my most worn accessories of June, my summer ‘sweatsuit’, portrait makeup, viewing and reading suggestions, etc.
Dessert of the Month
I basically only bake one cake anymore which is Clare De Boer’s Torn Peach Cake but sub in whatever fruit is in season/to my fancy at the time (in the winter I made a version with Amarena cherries, last fall I did figs, etc). I love making this well-behaved cake and was looking forward to a strawberry version. Aldergrove Farm almost always has fresh chamomile so I used a bunch of it to make ice cream to serve alongside. Strawberries and chamomile are companions. I sat at the table, with my baby, picking off each chamomile flower one by one to steep in the cream which was an event in an of itself. Top tier summer dessert.
