Chestnuts, London Pubs, Literary Retellings, Readable Cookbooks & More: Endnotes 15 November

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

Sweet, nutty, and sort of reminiscent of a sweet potato, roasted chestnuts are one of the coziest flavors of fall. In New York City, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, the unmistakable smokey smell floats through the air, guiding you to street vendors that roast the nuts on a big pan and scoop them into a twist of paper so you can nibble them while wandering. Here in Prague, the chestnut trees line the paths of our favorite park bloom with cones of fluffy white flowers in the spring and drop plump, glossy chestnuts this time of year. But I learned the hard way that the trees in Vyšehrad are horse chestnuts, aka the inedible type. For roasting and lovely glazed chestnuts or this Thanksgiving-worthy side dish of braised red cabbage with chestnuts, you need sweet chestnuts. They’re not grown in the US anymore — here’s why in a nutshell (sorry) — but are imported from China, Korea, Turkey, and Italy to be sold in your local grocery store. In season 2 of her show The French Chef, Julia devoted an episode to chestnuts: how to peel them, cook them, glaze them, purée them, and otherwise make them fancy. She also said that canned chestnuts are just as good as fresh, if you want to take an easier route to holiday cheer. [watch] If a toasty chestnut is your goal, here’s the ultimate guide to roasting chestnuts.

• It feels like everyone is talking about the newly crowned Booker Prize winner Orbital by Samantha Harvey. It’s next on my TBR — a plan that was only made more solid by this interview with the author. (It seems like it would be a great pairing with Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino; a book I LOVED (so much) and recommended in our podcast episode about Space.)

• This is so nerdy-cool: A 900-page guide to color from 1692, complete with color swatches. Who needs Pantone?!

• If you love a cookbook you can read like a novel, this collection of 9 new titles worth reading is for you.

• Want to make your Thanksgiving table a little posh? Practice these 13 pretty ways to fold a napkin.

• Here’s a fun event to kick off your Christmas revelry: A Victorian Christmas online. On Thursday, 05 December, Lucy Peter, a curator with the UK’s Royal Collection, will share family traditions, popular Victorian gifts, and stories of how Christmas was celebrated at Windsor Castle and Osborne House during the reign of Queen Victoria. Details and registration here.

• Treat yourself to this dreamy photo essay, Let’s Go On a London Pub Crawl!.

• Sorta related, this is a fun look at the drinking culture of Czech Republic. Spoiler: There’s lots of great beer. (In our house, we’re big fans of the herbal liqueur Becherovka.)

• And sticking around Prague for a bit, these paper beetles — to honor the 100th anniversary of Kafka’s death — are very cool.

• Oh, this library in Budapest:

• This is a very sweet comic about celebrating life.

• The Comfort (and Discomfort) of Retellings. ‘From books to film to theatre, writers have always been inspired by the stories that came before them. As artists, what are we if not the sum of all we’ve seen and absorbed and alchemised into our own voice? The history of oral storytelling is a history of retelling; the art of storytelling is almost always an act of retelling in some way.’

• The History Extra podcast dropped another great episode this week: Everything You Wanted to Know About the Brontës. ‘Explore the lives of the literary sisters — from their Yorkshire upbringings to their tragic ends.’

• Must-click headline: What It’s Like to Experience Polar Night in the World’s Northernmost Town.

• Apropos of nothing, here’s a list of 66 countries with digital nomade visas, along with tips to apply. (And why to consider nomading instead of emigrating).

New Episode of The Library of Lost Time

In each mini-podcast episode, we discuss two books at the top of our TBR, then share a fun book- or travel-related distraction. Get all the episodes and books galore here.

In this episode, we get excited about two books: the audiobook version of Rivals, written by Jilly Coooper (read by Georgia Tennant) and Big Book of Bread: 125+ Recipes for Every Baker from King Arthur Flour. Then Mel shares her extreme enthusiasm for sandwiches and The Sammies Awards. [transcript]

Links

• Rivals by Jilly Cooper (read by Georgia Tennant)

• King Arthur Flour Big Book of Bread: 125+ Recipes for Every Baker

• Podcast: How the Sandwich Consumed Britain

• Read: How the Sandwich Consumed Britain

• The Art of the Ultimate Sandwich

• The Guardian Audio Long Read podcast

• The Guardian Long Read archive

• Sandwich Designer of the Year Awards

• Recap of the 2023 Sammies

• Meet the Chef Behind the UK’s Best Sandwich, the Smokey Roll

• Smokey Roll recipe

• Mountain Feta & Merguez Wrap by Simon Broadribb

Parts of the Strong Sense of Place podcast are produced in udio. Some effects are provided by soundly.

May your sandwiches never get soggy.

Top image courtesy of Diana Light/Unsplash+.