Latest news with #porridge
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- The Guardian
Foodie Finland: the best restaurants and cafes in Helsinki
Unexpectedly, porridge is a Finnish obsession, available in petrol stations, schools and on national airline flights. But Helsinki's gastronomic offerings are a lot wilder, featuring reindeer, moose, pike perch, salmon soup, herring, seaweed – and even bear meat. And from summer into autumn, Finns' deep affinity with nature blossoms, fusing local organic produce with foraged berries and mushrooms. This inspires menus to feature whimsical fusions of textures and flavours, all straight from the land. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Garlanded with superlatives, from 'friendliest' and 'happiest' to 'world's most sustainable city', this breezy Nordic capital is fast catching up on its foodie neighbours. Enriched by immigrant chefs, the youthful, turbocharged culinary scene now abounds in excellent mid-range restaurants with affordable tasting menus – although wine prices are steep (from €10/£8.60 for a 120ml glass). Vegan and vegetarian alternatives are omnipresent, as are non-alcoholic drinks, many berry based. Tips are unnecessary, aesthetics pared down, locals unostentatious and dining starts early, at 5pm. And, this being Finland, you can digest your meal in a sauna, whether at an island restaurant (Lonna) or high in the sky on the Ferris wheel (SkySauna). Eat, sweat, swim – go Finn! Top of the table in zero-waste cred is pioneering Nolla (meaning 'zero'), which even boasts a designer composter in one corner. It serves regularly changing taster menus (four courses €59, six courses €69) in an old townhouse with a relaxed, hip vibe. Led by Catalan chef and co-owner Albert Franch Sunyer, the 70-seater espouses localism and upcycling: staff uniforms are made from old curtains and sheets, while the base of a wine bottle becomes a butter dish. Nothing goes to waste, whether leftover bread or used coffee grounds (an ingredient in a roasted hay ice-cream). Goose is a recent innovation, roasted deliciously with honey turnips, parsnip puree and hazelnut crumble, while Finncattle carpaccio with a radish and tomato harissa dressing brings an exotic hit. With a Michelin green star, Nolla's easygoing atmosphere and strict environmental policies make it a Not far from Nolla, in the popular central area, is long-standing Muru, one of the first French-style bistros in Helsinki. Masterminded by award-winning sommelier Samuil Angelov, it's intimate, with a slightly worn, rustic edge and eccentricities that stretch to a wine store at the top of a vertiginous ladder. The changing menus (four courses €59, two courses €39) are chalked on a blackboard in Finnish, which any waiter will translate – English is virtually a second language in Helsinki. Depending on the season, you might indulge in a starter of lavaret (freshwater fish) with pickled cucumber, radishes and dill flower, a nettle risotto with rhubarb and parmesan (risottos are Muru's speciality) and end with a luscious pannacotta and strawberry This is where the Middle East comes to Finland – dramatically. Cloistered in a curtained room, 14 diners sit around a kitchen bar to watch Kurdish chef Kozeen Shiwan enact his gastronomic life story. This is represented by 14 meticulously conjured courses – from a single richly decorated olive ('Made in Suleymaniah) to a spicy quail's leg buried in flowers ('Flora's Quail'). Each dish is introduced by the chef's witty patter. Gold rules, too, whether in Kozeen's teeth, his necklace, or encasing a platter of glittering potatoes baked with amba sauce and roe before they sink into a mayo, saffron and olive oil sauce. It's a memorable dining performance (€159), but make sure Kozeen is present on the night you book, and choose wine by the glass rather than the €119 wine Nobody can visit Helsinki without paying homage to Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), the groundbreaking architect and designer who brought functionalism to Finland. After three years of renovation, his monumental Finlandia Hall, an events centre which opened in 1971, now includes a sleekly designed bistro and a cafe. Everything in the building is by Aalto, from lighting to furniture and brass fittings, explained in an illuminating permanent exhibition. On the food front, the bistro (open for dinner Thursday to Saturday) offers typically creative Nordic cuisine with Mediterranean accents (four courses €59, six courses €69, plus à la carte) in a moody interior. For more luminosity, or for lunch, head for Finlandia Café&Wine (open all week), with terrace views over the bay. Self-service snacks and drinks are backed up by a daily lunch special (€14.70) or a copious breakfast (€19.90) – porridge included, of Down on the south harbour, beside a stretch of other eateries, Nokka's spacious warehouse is full of nautical artefacts and enlarged sketches of wild animals. The philosophy of chef-founder Ari Ruoho, a keen hunter and fisher, is to bring Finland's peerless 'wild nature' on to the plate, nose to tail. Apart from the wild meat, there is a huge emphasis on organic vegetables. There are three menus (four courses €89, vegetarian €74, eight courses from €129) and à la carte options. The smoked bream mousse starter with pickled cucumber, cucumber sorbet and a crispbread combining fish skin with dried roe and pumpkin seeds (€24) is a revelation, as is tender roasted reindeer, seasonal vegetables and roast potatoes with grated elk heart. This is ambitious, perfectly honed food that easily justifies its Michelin green Several thousand islands speckle the Gulf of Finland, so there's no excuse not to hop on a ferry for a 10-minute ride to Lonna island. Here, recycling comes with a twist, as ageing military structures now house an eponymous restaurant with bar and terrace overlooking the Baltic. Add to that a beach, a sleekly designed sauna and views to Helsinki and you have a bucolic escape. The 60-seater Lonna restaurant is low key, with bare brick walls and gorgeous Finnish tableware, and is open May to September. Excellent-value menus (three courses €39) change monthly, offering local organic produce and plentiful vegetarian options, such as oyster mushrooms with barley and smoked tomato, or a meaty option such as organic pork with bok choi and trout In an elegant residential neighbourhood, this quirky little restaurant offers a four-course menu (€48) tweaked every few weeks. 'We do what's in season, using French technique and good ingredients from abroad, and only wild game or fish,' says Ilpo Vainonen, one of the two young chefs who are co-owners with sommelier and manager Johan Borgar. Like many of their peers, they make their own bread, which comes with a black olive dip. Every dish is presented superbly: try a starter combining fresh and semi-dried tomatoes framed by hazelnuts, cream cheese and tiny cherries, or an ice-cream in a puddle of olive oil served with a pan of stone fruits poached in rum syrup. Suddenly, a spoonful of raspberry sorbet coated in pink peppercorn appears. As most of the restaurants above open for dinner only, lunch during Helsinki's summer is all about outdoor grazing. Ice-cream kiosks dot the city, while numerous lippakioski (wooden kiosks dating from the 1920s) provide drinks and snacks. Countless cafes include quaint Café Regatta, an old waterside fisher's shack with terrace. The touristy Market Hall offers wide-ranging choices, from reindeer salami and salmon soup to Asian fast food. Inside Oodi, Helsinki's spectacular central library, you can enjoy a bargain set lunch or take snacks on to the panoramic terrace. And as everyone has the right to forage, for dessert head for Central Park to fill your pockets. The trip was provided by Visit Finland and Helsinki Partners. Rooms at NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa start at €150 room-only in August
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- The Guardian
Foodie Finland: the best restaurants and cafes in Helsinki
Unexpectedly, porridge is a Finnish obsession, available in petrol stations, schools and on national airline flights. But Helsinki's gastronomic offerings are a lot wilder, featuring reindeer, moose, pike perch, salmon soup, herring, seaweed – and even bear meat. And from summer into autumn, Finns' deep affinity with nature blossoms, fusing local organic produce with foraged berries and mushrooms. This inspires menus to feature whimsical fusions of textures and flavours, all straight from the land. The Guardian's journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more. Garlanded with superlatives, from 'friendliest' and 'happiest' to 'world's most sustainable city', this breezy Nordic capital is fast catching up on its foodie neighbours. Enriched by immigrant chefs, the youthful, turbocharged culinary scene now abounds in excellent mid-range restaurants with affordable tasting menus – although wine prices are steep (from €10/£8.60 for a 120ml glass). Vegan and vegetarian alternatives are omnipresent, as are non-alcoholic drinks, many berry based. Tips are unnecessary, aesthetics pared down, locals unostentatious and dining starts early, at 5pm. And, this being Finland, you can digest your meal in a sauna, whether at an island restaurant (Lonna) or high in the sky on the Ferris wheel (SkySauna). Eat, sweat, swim – go Finn! Top of the table in zero-waste cred is pioneering Nolla (meaning 'zero'), which even boasts a designer composter in one corner. It serves regularly changing taster menus (four courses €59, six courses €69) in an old townhouse with a relaxed, hip vibe. Led by Catalan chef and co-owner Albert Franch Sunyer, the 70-seater espouses localism and upcycling: staff uniforms are made from old curtains and sheets, while the base of a wine bottle becomes a butter dish. Nothing goes to waste, whether leftover bread or used coffee grounds (an ingredient in a roasted hay ice-cream). Goose is a recent innovation, roasted deliciously with honey turnips, parsnip puree and hazelnut crumble, while Finncattle carpaccio with a radish and tomato harissa dressing brings an exotic hit. With a Michelin green star, Nolla's easygoing atmosphere and strict environmental policies make it a Not far from Nolla, in the popular central area, is long-standing Muru, one of the first French-style bistros in Helsinki. Masterminded by award-winning sommelier Samuil Angelov, it's intimate, with a slightly worn, rustic edge and eccentricities that stretch to a wine store at the top of a vertiginous ladder. The changing menus (four courses €59, two courses €39) are chalked on a blackboard in Finnish, which any waiter will translate – English is virtually a second language in Helsinki. Depending on the season, you might indulge in a starter of lavaret (freshwater fish) with pickled cucumber, radishes and dill flower, a nettle risotto with rhubarb and parmesan (risottos are Muru's speciality) and end with a luscious pannacotta and strawberry This is where the Middle East comes to Finland – dramatically. Cloistered in a curtained room, 14 diners sit around a kitchen bar to watch Kurdish chef Kozeen Shiwan enact his gastronomic life story. This is represented by 14 meticulously conjured courses – from a single richly decorated olive ('Made in Suleymaniah) to a spicy quail's leg buried in flowers ('Flora's Quail'). Each dish is introduced by the chef's witty patter. Gold rules, too, whether in Kozeen's teeth, his necklace, or encasing a platter of glittering potatoes baked with amba sauce and roe before they sink into a mayo, saffron and olive oil sauce. It's a memorable dining performance (€159), but make sure Kozeen is present on the night you book, and choose wine by the glass rather than the €119 wine Nobody can visit Helsinki without paying homage to Alvar Aalto (1898-1976), the groundbreaking architect and designer who brought functionalism to Finland. After three years of renovation, his monumental Finlandia Hall, an events centre which opened in 1971, now includes a sleekly designed bistro and a cafe. Everything in the building is by Aalto, from lighting to furniture and brass fittings, explained in an illuminating permanent exhibition. On the food front, the bistro (open for dinner Thursday to Saturday) offers typically creative Nordic cuisine with Mediterranean accents (four courses €59, six courses €69, plus à la carte) in a moody interior. For more luminosity, or for lunch, head for Finlandia Café&Wine (open all week), with terrace views over the bay. Self-service snacks and drinks are backed up by a daily lunch special (€14.70) or a copious breakfast (€19.90) – porridge included, of Down on the south harbour, beside a stretch of other eateries, Nokka's spacious warehouse is full of nautical artefacts and enlarged sketches of wild animals. The philosophy of chef-founder Ari Ruoho, a keen hunter and fisher, is to bring Finland's peerless 'wild nature' on to the plate, nose to tail. Apart from the wild meat, there is a huge emphasis on organic vegetables. There are three menus (four courses €89, vegetarian €74, eight courses from €129) and à la carte options. The smoked bream mousse starter with pickled cucumber, cucumber sorbet and a crispbread combining fish skin with dried roe and pumpkin seeds (€24) is a revelation, as is tender roasted reindeer, seasonal vegetables and roast potatoes with grated elk heart. This is ambitious, perfectly honed food that easily justifies its Michelin green Several thousand islands speckle the Gulf of Finland, so there's no excuse not to hop on a ferry for a 10-minute ride to Lonna island. Here, recycling comes with a twist, as ageing military structures now house an eponymous restaurant with bar and terrace overlooking the Baltic. Add to that a beach, a sleekly designed sauna and views to Helsinki and you have a bucolic escape. The 60-seater Lonna restaurant is low key, with bare brick walls and gorgeous Finnish tableware, and is open May to September. Excellent-value menus (three courses €39) change monthly, offering local organic produce and plentiful vegetarian options, such as oyster mushrooms with barley and smoked tomato, or a meaty option such as organic pork with bok choi and trout In an elegant residential neighbourhood, this quirky little restaurant offers a four-course menu (€48) tweaked every few weeks. 'We do what's in season, using French technique and good ingredients from abroad, and only wild game or fish,' says Ilpo Vainonen, one of the two young chefs who are co-owners with sommelier and manager Johan Borgar. Like many of their peers, they make their own bread, which comes with a black olive dip. Every dish is presented superbly: try a starter combining fresh and semi-dried tomatoes framed by hazelnuts, cream cheese and tiny cherries, or an ice-cream in a puddle of olive oil served with a pan of stone fruits poached in rum syrup. Suddenly, a spoonful of raspberry sorbet coated in pink peppercorn appears. As most of the restaurants above open for dinner only, lunch during Helsinki's summer is all about outdoor grazing. Ice-cream kiosks dot the city, while numerous lippakioski (wooden kiosks dating from the 1920s) provide drinks and snacks. Countless cafes include quaint Café Regatta, an old waterside fisher's shack with terrace. The touristy Market Hall offers wide-ranging choices, from reindeer salami and salmon soup to Asian fast food. Inside Oodi, Helsinki's spectacular central library, you can enjoy a bargain set lunch or take snacks on to the panoramic terrace. And as everyone has the right to forage, for dessert head for Central Park to fill your pockets. The trip was provided by Visit Finland and Helsinki Partners. Rooms at NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa start at €150 room-only in August
The Sun
13-07-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
My miserable 12½ hour US train journey at Club World Cup with £6 purple sludge ‘porridge' made me dream of British rail
STEP AWAY from the Amtrak oatmeal. American long distance trains are bad enough but the food they serve is even worse. 8 8 8 The 'porridge' they serve makes the infamous British Rail pork pie of the 1970s look like the top of the menu fare from a Michelin Star restaurant. And it's not cheap either. Around £6 per pot of purple sludge that when mixed with a jet of boiling hot water forms an indigo mess that is as arduous on the stomach as the painfully slow services that run between some cities. You may discover this next year when the USA hosts the real World Cup - a coming together of 48 nations competing for the biggest prize in international football. Fans and players will be criss-crossing this vast country in many ways. For Chelsea during the Club World Cup this summer it has been first class travel for a whole month - flights and five star hotels. Cole Palmer will hopefully be following similar pathways next summer with England. football tournament is wearing. 8 America has hosted a World Cup before. In 1994, when then Ireland boss Jack Charlton warned that someone could die from the heat. Temperatures touching 40 degrees here over the past weeks, Chelsea vice-captain Enzo Fernandez admitting he felt dizzy during a game and had to lie down. Juventus players asking to come off to escape the heat. The world is warmer now than it was back in the 1990s and will be even warmer next year. Palmer has talked of the two hour flights everywhere draining his legs and his soul. Chelsea's poster boy player turned up at the Club World Cup wearing a PPE mask over his face because he says he 'doesn't like the smell of planes'. 8 8 8 Unfortunately, he will have to go through it all again because Americans love flying and driving. Back in 1987 there was a hit movie - Planes, Trains and Automobiles - a comic tale of two stranded men trying to make it home for Christmas by any means when snow puts paid to their hopes of taking a jet home. It's planes and cars for the people over here. The trains are a joke. At least the one that took 12½ hours to carry me just 550 miles from Charlotte to Philadelphia to catch up with the Chelsea charabanc as they moved from city to city playing games. You can just about take a similar journey by rail in the UK but you might fall off the end of our little country into the sea at the end. But it wouldn't take more than half a day to do it either. It would take around half that time. Amtrak's number 80 service from North Carolina to Pennsylvania is an experience. Good or bad is debatable. They know that the 6.45am departure time means passengers are going to get hungry pretty quickly, and they have a captive market for the stuff they pass off as food as you chug along at no more than 40mph with a stinky old diesel engine dragging the carriages behind it like some sad old pack donkey. And once you reach Washington, brace yourself for a half hour wait while the diesel loco is uncoupled and the electric one hooked up - only then can you speed along at a decent pace. 8 Chelsea began their Club World Cup campaign in Atlanta and were so convinced they would win their group that they earmarked Miami as their next training base. It didn't quite work out that way and they ended as runners up. But still they chose sunny Florida and glamorous South Beach as a temporary HQ. This meant flying to their last 16 game in Charlotte and then back up north to Philly for their quarter final win over Palmeiras. From there's been onwards to New York, The Big Apple, and while it's luxury all the way for the players, they are still getting fed up with being cooped up in hotel rooms and strange beds. Downtime for them has been ping pong, basketball, dinners together and walks. Only last week French defender Malo Gusto walked right past me in Greenwich Village, engaged with a couple of pals and having his photo taken the whole time. The thing with America is that it doesn't need to sell itself. It's the richest and most entertaining country in the world. And it knows it. Unsurprisingly, being run by someone like Donald Trump means the US is wrapped up in itself. It's not been difficult finding a local who has no clue that the Club World Cup is actually happening within their borders. There won't be so much ignorance next year at the real World Cup but don't bet against it.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
‘I don't have rules': cooks on making perfect porridge at home
The cookbook author Elizabeth Hewson cherishes her winter breakfast routine. She creeps downstairs before sunrise, while her husband and children are still sleeping, to make herself a bubbling pot of porridge. 'It's that small moment of peace before the day gets going,' she says. 'The rhythm of standing at the stove stirring is one of those quiet rituals that I love.' She makes it with traditional oats, usually toasted dry then soaked in water overnight. 'I pour boiling water on to the oats the night before and then they're really fluffy in the morning. It is a bit quicker to cook them in the morning, and it has a creamy result as well.' Her current obsession is stirring in an egg yolk. 'I think that adds a really lovely richness to it. It also leaves me feeling fuller for longer,' she says. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Hewson salts her porridge 'quite generously', cooking it low and slow, stirring often. 'We always have frozen berries in the freezer, because of the kids, so I'll melt that down and serve on top. My favourite at the moment is stewing apples with sultanas and cinnamon.' If she has extra time, she'll make a crumble topping or simply add granola, 'like an apple crumble and custard porridge,' she says. 'If we've got frozen cherries, I'll pop them in a saucepan with a bit of vanilla, then pour them on top with brown sugar and cream.' At Sydney cafe Superfreak, co-owner Michael Ico serves an oat, quinoa, buckwheat and rye porridge topped with cultured butter, brown sugar and poached rhubarb. But at home, he steers clear of dairy altogether – opting for something quick and healthy for his two children. 'I'll tend to soak oats overnight and cook them with an alternative milk, because most of my family is lactose intolerant. Then I'll add just honey,' he says. He tops porridge with chia seeds, bananas or berries, and flax seeds – 'things that are high-fibre and good for the kids'. 'I add cinnamon or peanut butter if the kids want it,' he adds. 'I don't have rules.' Chef Toby Wilson is more of a porridge purist. He's made countless bowls of porridge with just three ingredients: oats, water and salt – because those are the only three ingredients allowed in the world porridge-making championships; he competed twice, in 2022 and 2023. He's now the subject of Australian documentary, The Golden Spurtle, which charmed audiences at the Sydney film festival this year. 'It's funny,' he says. 'It's a fairly boring dish, but its simplicity is what makes it great. Trying to master three ingredients – especially when two are salt and water – is an interesting practice. It's a good practice to go through as a cook, professional or domestic.' Wilson uses steel-cut oats and makes his porridge with water – filtered is better than tap, he says. He rarely adds dairy, but he'll occasionally top the oats with a sprinkle of brown sugar and a pat of butter. Crucially, he'll always add salt. 'I use sea salt, a nice healthy pinch.' For Wilson, adding fresh fruit, nuts or seeds isn't necessary: 'It's a different dish at that point,' he says. 'I'm a less-is-more guy, but if you are going to add fruit I would personally move towards bananas or stewed rhubarb, rather than something watery like fresh berries. I find those are a little sharp and watery for what should be a creamy dish.' Alice Zaslavsky is a big fan of Wilson's method. 'Thanks to Toby, we completely revolutionised the way we make our porridge,' says the cookbook author and Guardian Australia food columnist. '[My husband] Nick makes it using unstabilised oats, three parts water to one part oats, with half a teaspoon of salt flakes. It's quite salty, because then we team it with really good French butter and brown sugar.' She adds the butter and sugar at the table. 'I quite like – and I learned this from [author] Asako Yuzuki, from her book Butter – that interplay between the cold butter and the hot porridge. The key thing with the sugar is we use a soft dark brown sugar, and you get the odd crunchy, molasses-y bit of brown sugar in your creamy bite of buttery porridge.' Alice and Nick treat it as a choose-your-own-adventure for their daughter, so she can add toppings such as honey, milk, muesli, granola and yoghurt. 'The unstabilised oats are more nutrient dense and they have a slower release of energy,' says Zaslavsky. 'They're also chewier, and creamy without the dairy.'
Irish Times
23-06-2025
- Lifestyle
- Irish Times
Choosing a nice mug, bowl or spoon is not a trivial matter
I was making tea for a visiting friend this week. Despite the fact that I grew up in culture where the first offer of tea is final and she's from the west of Ireland, between us we have made a happy script that allows us each to give the other her preferred beverage, with biscuits if she fancies them and not if she doesn't. I put my friend's tea in my favourite new mug, because I knew she'd share my pleasure in its hand-thrown heft, concave curve and dappled glaze. I left the pretty bone china mug with the mimsy two-finger handle at the back of the cupboard, waiting for a different friend. I was less generous when offering porridge to the Leaving Certificate child in our house this week. No problem with the bowl, he likes a straight-sided industrially made affair which I do not covet. But there were two spoons left in the drawer, a flattish one with a textured handle and a pointy one with a thin, nicely weighted handle, which I kept back for myself. Why am I expecting the nation to take an interest in my cutlery drawer? Because I have been thinking, this week, about pleasures that seem slight. It is a mistake – visible to any competent novelist – to assume that what is intimate is trivial. The way we live in hours reveals more truths and brings more happiness than moments of grandstanding, and there are few objects more intimate than the ones we put in our mouths. READ MORE A better day can start with favourite soap, a fresh towel of your preferred texture (wind-dried and crisp, please). I know very few people who, when offered a choice of mugs, truly have no preference. I usually set the table before serving food to guests, which means they don't get to choose cutlery, but the fact that so many designs exist shows that we each find pleasure in some more than others. I used to think I should have sets of matching crockery and cutlery, of the sort that my grandparents were delighted to achieve and my parents took for granted, but lately I think my more eclectic instincts are happy. I like choosing a particular glass for every drink of water, a knife for every piece of fruit. I hear the ancestral voices starting up: you should think yourself lucky you have food to put in your bowls, what kind of late capitalist nonsense is this, going on about the shapes of spoons when there are folk dying in the world? Why don't you pick up your fruit and bite it like a normal person? There are folk dying, and we remember them, but there are also folk designing and making objects that bring care and play to necessity. Design and making are as much part of being human as war and scolding. And this isn't about wealth: handmade ceramics of course cost more than industrially produced ones, as they should, and these days I can often afford them, but many of my old favourites come from charity shops and flea markets. Bowls from the best Irish craft potters cost less than many of the bottles of wine reviewed in this paper . [ Irish and English funerals are very different – it would be strange to go to a colleague's family funeral in England Opens in new window ] For sure there's an expenditure of time in slicing and fanning food you could bite, but I continue to resist a model of humanity in which it's normal and correct that everyone is always barely surviving and certainly too busy to think about bowls. We've been making and, importantly, embellishing bowls for millenniums. I was teaching a few weeks ago with a colleague who said that her practice – in textile design – was conceived in resistance to toxic productivity narratives. I'm generally averse to the metaphorical (over)use of 'toxic'. Suddenly convenient words often encode assumptions that would benefit from the cold light of day. But this time I felt the relief of recognition. When striving for 'productivity', what exactly are we producing, and for whose benefit? Who would lose what if you took the time to slice your fruit with a knife whose handle pleases you? It doesn't take any longer to use a spoon whose shape is good in your mouth, it just makes your breakfast happier. I have been reading recently about 'pleasure activism'. Watch this space, but the headline is that pleasure can be resistance. Maybe try it. It might be revealing to see who is annoyed. Sarah Moss's novel Ripeness is out now
