January 27, 2020 Issue

Notes on this week’s issue:

1. I thoroughly enjoyed Hannah Goldfield’s “Tables For Two: Aquavit,” particularly her descriptions of the Arctic Bird’s Nest (“I was as pleased to try a marbled medallion of Mangalitsa pork collar, as tender and shaggy as corned beef and plated with a tart, crimson umeboshi-plum purée, as I was to revisit the Arctic Bird’s Nest dessert, a dramatic trompe-l’oeil featuring white-chocolate eggs with sea-buckthorn-curd yolks”) the dill potato chips (“Here is where you’ll find those remarkable sausages, plus dill potato chips sliced so thin they’re as translucent as green stained glass, yet somehow sturdy enough to hold up to onion dip”), and the princess cake (“A fat wedge of princess cake—whipped cream, raspberry jam, and vanilla sponge layered beneath a thick sheet of candy-green marzipan—looks exactly the way it does on “The Great British Baking Show.” Goldfield writes some of the magazine’s most ravishing sentences. Caroline Tompkins’ photo of the princess cake is also exceedingly beautiful.

2. Another standout is Julyssa Lopez’s “Night Life: Indigo De Souza,” worth quoting in full:

Indigo De Souza’s voice soars over acerbic, acid-washed guitars that, try as they might, never drown her out. Her lyrics are often wired, stream-of-consciousness confessions (“I want to say no when I’m offered a hit and it ruins my weekend”) that whoosh out, sometimes sweetly and sometimes furiously, over punky, propulsive arrangements. Hearing the Asheville artist abandon herself and wail alongside her razor-sharp instrumentals has a raw and healing effect, like cauterizing a deep cut.

3. Cristiana Couceiro’s illustration for Steve Smith’s “New Music: Focus” is eye-catching. I relish the combination of painting and photography.

4. Rebecca Mead’s bracing “Going for the Cold” contains a wonderful example of my favourite kind of sentence: “Not long after sunrise on a gray Halloween morning, I joined the members of the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association for a celebratory swim and breakfast.” Such lines – personal, active, specific, experiential – beckon me to follow along; I’m happy to do so. Mead is a master of them. Here’s another one from the same piece: “An hour or so later, my nausea had abated and my teeth had stopped chattering, and I joined many of the Buoy 13 swimmers as they gathered at the town hall in Kendal for the Mountain Festival’s session on outdoor swimming.” In Mead’s hands, reporting becomes experience. That, for me, is the essence of great journalism.