There is a dire shortage of cats on the feed. Do your civic duty and post a cat.
Yvonne Lam@yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 14h agoThere is a dire shortage of cats on the feed. Do your civic duty and post a cat.
F.
@edgwareviabank.bsky.social
Italian-born, raised all over the place, wound up in London for better or worse. Also: 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 translator & writer, hobby photographer, cat person, here for books & food. She / her.
Yvonne Lam@yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 14h agoMaking sausage risotto. My mother doesn't enjoy cooking, but she does make a mean sausage risotto, and my attempts are always Just Not It. Tonight's recipe is from Italy's most famous cooking website, and I can already tell, nope, still not as good as the risotto of my memories.
Just described myself as "three angsty teenagers in a trenchcoat" in conversation. Which is not entirely inaccurate, and would, I'm sure, go down very well in my job applications.
On exactly 31 January I dragged a friend on a North London bookshop crawl to find a book I wanted to quote in a translator's note, and had already returned to the library. We didn't find it. The translation's submission deadline was 1 February. "Forget it" I said, "they'll reject me anyway." Well...
Plot twist! The cats' adoption fell through at the last minute, and (very) long story short...I feel relieved. Selfish of me, maybe. But look at them, in their favourite house with their favourite people. This is home for them for as long as they need.
Well hello, it's been a minute, hasn't it? I didn't plan to go quiet this long. It just happened. I'm not good at social media, I always knew it, and it felt nice to lean into it. So, since I don't know when I'll next feel like posting, here's a thread of things I thought of sharing and forgot to.
Books I read in March: switching genres like it's nobody's business. Special thanks to @404ink.bsky.social (the reflections on bilingualism in Speak Still will stay with me a long time), and to @orendabooks.bsky.social, because In Thin Air has to be the best thriller I've read in many months.
One of my two favourite local bakeries is closing tomorrow, I'm in a huge queue (before they're even open) to score one last custard bun I may not get, and despite the nice things I know I have in this world, I'm in full "why can't we ever have nice things in this world" mood right now. Send cats.
Just out! New micro! By me! There are faint echoes of long-forgotten people and events here. Teenage Me dug out the memories, Present Me merged them into fiction. Damn, I might get emotional about this one. Thank you @identitytheory.bsky.social & @vicnogaywrites.bsky.social for giving it a chance.
Identity Theory@identitytheory.bsky.social · 7mo ago"The girl who bullied you in middle school dies at seventeen" New micro by @edgwareviabank.bsky.social
every time i look at instagram, i feel like im the only adult who doesn't know how to make money
February reads on @thestorygraph.com: Scams! Haunting Argentinian mysteries! Young women going through mental health breakdowns! I'm all about the joyous reads, you see. Little Bosses Everywhere is a 10/10 recommendation, if you're into MLM deep dives or getting angry about the state of the world.
I'm sitting outside my favourite neighbourhood cafe with a flat white and an ebook, and the lady behind me in the queue had a gorgeous gorgeous dog, and for the first time today, I feel I'm onto something that might ease the knot of anxiety I've had in my stomach over something silly I think I did.
Hi! Happy Saturday! Have some microfiction by yours truly, courtesy of @templeinacity.bsky.social. I started this a lifetime ago in a @kathyfish.bsky.social Flash Fiction Extravaganza - so pleased it's found a home. Will share a photo of the OTT Christmas lights that inspired it if you ask nicely.
Temple in a city@templeinacity.bsky.social · 8mo agoGrowing dread, time passes, hanging, still hanging. A gem by @edgwareviabank.bsky.social templeinacity.com/micro-fictio...
Kate Bush appreciation thread. And here's the working link to the Mojo article: www.mojo4music.com/articles/the...
Every Kate Bush Album Ranked From Worst To Best
This woman's work... On the anniversary of her debut LP The Kick Inside's release, MOJO surveys each remarkable album from the incomparable Kate Bush.
mojo4music.com
Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · 8mo agoIf you only know Kate from Stranger Things, go here:
This crosses over with my old gripes about math: teaching quality (I had mocking teachers, curriculum-obsessed teachers and disengaged teachers, none prioritising curiosity over test scores) and that other pervasive '00s sentiment ("STEM degrees are for boys"). Probably lucky I have no time to rant.
Faine Greenwood@faineg.com · 9mo agoThose who weren’t resigned to the Math Idiot Garbage Bin as kids may not grasp how much “if you’re bad at math, you’ll die in a ditch and all will be better off for it” sentiment was floating around in the 90s and 2000s, but it sure felt real to me. (my parents are great! It didn’t come from them!)
I seem to have entered a '90s Eurodance rabbit hole. Blaming it on watching the figure skating and drinking coffee after 3pm today. BUT! The autoplay suggestions I'm getting are so spot-on, 13-year-old me might as well have recorded them herself off that long defunct local radio station she loved.
Given time, I always do the things I say I'll do. "Things" being the white chocolate & miso cookies I made for a baking club I'm going to later; "time" being easily 10 years since the first and only time I ate one before. Forget inbox zero: recipe stash zero is the challenge (it'll never happen).
"The boxes are lying" has to be the most perfect sentence I'll read today. And you know who's also lying? My mother, who follows the timing on the box and then insists it's still too raw. I was last summer years old when she admitted the problem is her, not me - she actually likes it overcooked.
Dr Vanessa@hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 9mo agoSometimes reddit is an amazing resource. www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/co...
January reads on @thestorygraph.com: I'm in the middle of two slow-burners, so for now, all you get is the fast-paced mysteries I picked up when I needed breaks. The literary hardbacks I piled up over the past two years and still not started keep watching reproachfully from the shelves.
Not trying to up your expectations or anything, but a little bird told me a micro by yours truly is going to be in here. Insert eyes emoji, in the absence of an emoji that signals "I'm a big child and can't keep my mouth shut about exciting news".
Temple in a city@templeinacity.bsky.social · 9mo agoWe’re hard at work building issue 4 of Temple in a City, filled with brilliant writers and writing. Look for it to emerge in February.
My day has been quite the shitshow, but an earworm from a song I love just gave me the idea I needed to fix a thorny sentence in a short story I'm translating, and I'm feeling so proud right now. So yeah, now I have to share the song with you, you're welcome.
Lenders in the Temple
YouTube video by Conor Oberst - Topic
youtube.com
Some days it feels society is forcing people like me on one of two career paths: withering away in jobs that have no use for the things we enjoy about ourselves, or becoming LinkedIn life coaches to scam the people who are tired of withering. And come on - surely there's got to be a better option?
I'll try doing #CookJan even though I'm not in the mood for daily photos. I always love seeing what everyone makes, and would hate for it to stop because no one's joining in. Also, I need to shout about the cookbooks that made my meals better last year, should anyone care to listen. So let's go!
Natalie Alana Ashton@natalan.bsky.social · 10mo agoim really looking forward to #cookjan, a twitter tradition that's just about survived the move over here here's the explainer from @aliceslater.bsky.social's blog. (and an annual reminder to mute that hashtag if you don't want to see food pics, for any reason).
I never make new year resolutions, but in 2025 I tried. Turns out that starting Asako Yuzuki's Butter (yesterday) is the only one I kept. Back to a resolution-less life, then. Though maybe my goal should be learning to not bite off more than I can chew. Tricky when I want to change the path I'm on.
I lived and worked in Notting Hill for years without ever seeing anyone famous. My colleagues saw David Beckham around Westbourne Grove multiple times, including at a bar round the corner from the office we all often went to. A friend once served Noel Gallagher at a pub. Me? Not a single sighting.
Twlldun@twlldun.bsky.social · 10mo agoPlease quote this with the time you didn’t interact with someone famous - eg one time I was in Cardiff the same weekend as Willem Dafoe (but I didn’t see him or even know he was there until he appeared on the telly later)
I had a St. John mince pie at the new cafe they have inside the London Review Bookshop, and it was so good, I don't want to get mince pies from anywhere else next year (also must return with two willing companions for a sharing plate of 6 freshly baked madeleines, make it a resolution for 2026).
Christmas lunch for 2 (with plenty of leftovers for the coming days): @sabrinaghayour.bsky.social's Khoresh-e Fesenjan, because we're big Persiana fans in this house, and I've wanted to try the recipe for years. With the food I've made so far, I don't regret not flying home for the holidays one bit.
Merry Christmas from me and the cats, who are all set for a day of relaxing in the ways they most love (Lena: kneading on humans with razor-sharp claws; Poppy: giving Partner a heart attack by leaning too close to the TV screen). Wishing you a lovely chill day too!
My 1st year of uni, in a hellish houseshare with 5 girls that drove me mad, one of them said she saw me as someone she could talk to about anything without fear of judgement. Also, from my Mum (who doesn't do praise): "you notice things other people don't". Still remember where and why she said it.
Wyatt Sinclair@crumblsucks.wyattswickedgoods.com · 10mo agoWhat's a compliment you'll never forget?