Bee Wilson

How I wrote THE HEART-SHAPED TIN @4thestatebooks @w.w.norton With so many thanks to all of you who have read it so far. 🙏❤️

For a long time after my separation, I could hardly look at this cake tin without wincing. It was the tin I baked my own wedding cake in. When it was new, it felt so full of hope, but now it was rusty in patches and it had the air of something cast-aside. Which was how I felt, much of the time. I never would have imagined that this tin would one day star on its own book cover and I’m so happy to share it with you. This is the cover for the US edition of THE HEART-SHAPED TIN, designed by the brilliant @steveattardo of @w.w.norton . It’s a collection of 35 short essays. It’s the most personal book I’ve ever written. As the subtitle says, it’s about love, loss and kitchen objects. And how the objects that keep us company can change their meaning, in almost magical ways. Some of the objects are my own: I write about my son’s first plate and the way my grief for my mother’s death played out through her kitchen possessions. But I also tell the stories of other people and their own precious objects ( a mother’s salt shaker, a pressure cooker that has made 6 decades of family meals, a spoon made in a concentration camp, a corkscrew collection) and I’m so grateful to everyone who spoke to me for the book. The US edition is out in November and it would mean so much if you felt like preordering. With huge thanks to everyone at Norton who worked on the book including Melanie Tortoroli, Huneeya Siddiqui.

Some news! A little over four years ago I posted here about a strange thing that happened. One August day in 2020, a cake tin suddenly fell at my feet with a loud clang. It wasn’t just any cake tin. It was the heart-shaped tin I had used to bake my own wedding cake with nearly 23 years earlier. My husband-to-be told me he liked fruit cake but hated glacé cherries so I baked a rich, dark fruit cake with no cherries and chopped-up dried apricots to take their place. There are photos of us cutting the cake together looking blissfully happy. I wouldn’t have thought much about the tin falling except that it was only two months since my husband had left me, out of the blue. It felt like a sign. At the time of my original post, many of you made the kind suggestion that I should invest the tin with new associations and bake some kind of celebration cake for myself in it. I liked the idea but for a long time, I didn’t feel ready. And then, this year, for my fiftieth birthday, I did. My three children were all at home and I made a huge @nigellalawson buttermilk cake, the one I made for their birthdays when they were little, and topped it with the richest darkest ganache. And it really did help me feel that life moves on and that objects can change their meaning in beautiful ways as well as sad ones. But that isn’t the news. The news part is that I’ve written a book called THE HEART-SHAPED TIN. It’s only partly about my own tin. The rest of the book is 35 short stories about kitchen objects - mine and other people’s - and how they relate to love and loss. Some of the stories are about my mother (when she began suffering with dementia, she became convinced that someone had stolen her toast rack). Some are about other people and the kitchen things they hold dear: a special pasta bowl, a mother’s Syrian vegetable corers. Some are historical: a chocolate bottle that is 5000 years old, a queen’s sieve. The book is out next year @wwnorton @4thestatebooks . I hope you like it. And do tell me if you have a kitchen object that means something to you. #theheartshapedtin

I’m so happy to let you know that my book THE HEART-SHAPED TIN is out now in paperback in the U.K. from @4thestatebooks (U.S. paperback to follow in the Fall from @w.w.norton ). Thank you so much to everyone to has read the book so far and told me your own stories of meaningful kitchen objects. I’ve never written a book before that gave rise to so many emotional conversations and I am so grateful. If anyone would like a copy of the paperback, I have three free copies to give away to the first three people to reply here to say they would like one. I’ve written about it for my latest newsletter (Substack) along with thoughts on a basket where I keep random ‘bits and bobs’ which seem to serve no rational purpose yet seem strangely hard to give away. ‘The objects we hold onto often represent buried dreams or delusions and this is why we find it so hard to toss them away, even when they serve no purpose in our lives’, I wrote in my own book. You’d think that having written these words, I might have become more ruthless about chucking or recycling the obsolete stuff in my life. Yet I’ve found that possessions can have a hold on us that continues even when we recognise it makes no sense. If anything, writing a book on the subject has made me find certain things associated with people I love even more poignant. Two of these objects are a tiny mirror and tiny clock belonging to a doll’s house which my daughter gave away years ago. These are the very definition of useless objects. Yet somehow I keep this tiny mirror because it reminds me of the yearning I felt to give her the doll’s house in the first place when she was five and I was heavily pregnant with her little brother and I wanted her to know that the new baby could never displace her. Life has long since moved on. The baby is a teenager and my daughter has left home. But the mirror and I still remember. Do you have an object you can’t let go of? #theheartshapedtin

Snapshots of cooking and Spring… Recipe testing Greek-Turkish meatballs for my next cookbook (with thanks to @marika_paraskevopoulou for the recipe though mine will never be as good as yours) Beautiful plants at Kettles Yard Making and eating David Tanis lemon meringue pots with friends Wild garlic! And superb wild garlicky things with focaccia at @vanderlylerestaurant Asparagus carbonara Returning to Jane Grigson Lammas Land If in doubt, my son and I are eating bean and pasta soup (this one with chard) Udon at Koya Finally made it to the lovely Monroe Street bakery in Newnham, Cambridge (I already knew how good it was because a friend had a divine birthday cake from here based on the @Helen_goh_bakes Blackcurrant Cake). Best scones. Best everything. Totally recommended (and have your cake with coffee from @fluxbymarsi round the corner). Mill road cemetery - the elderflower is out

Why are pleasure and healthy eating so often seen as enemies? And what if the opposite were true? I was happy to talk to @pete_wells about @tasted_feed for this excellent piece by him in today’s @nytimes . Also featuring @marionnestle , Dr David Ludwig (who argues against the theory that ultra-processed foods are ‘hyper-palatable’) and Dr Dana Small, one of the world’s leading experts on the neuroscience of food decisions, who, when she was diagnosed as prediabetic, changed her diet by focusing *more* on pleasure, not less - the most delicious stir-fries, the sweetest raspberries and found this regime much easier to follow than the restrictive diets she’d been on in the past.

My latest newsletter (Substack) includes my new favourite recipe for asparagus. Also a historical mystery: why did French cooks in the eighteenth century make a dish called ‘asparagus disguised as peas?’ 🫛🫛🫛

Yes, yes, roasted aubergines. Less oil than fried and all that. But thank you so much to @sami_tamimi and his wonderful book BOUSTANY (a celebration of the food of Palestine) for reminding me that there is nothing quite like deep fried golden pieces of aubergine/eggplant. So meltingly soft and moreish. This was Sami’s fried aubergine m’tabbal with tomato and coriander salsa which he says reminds him of the sandwiches of fried vegetables he used to eat during his Palestinian childhood on Fridays. It’s excellent either as a salad/ very substantial side dish or stuffed into warm flatbread.

What do you do with your wedding dress when you are a divorced person? Like many of the kitchen objects I write about in my book THE HEART-SHAPED TIN, including the tin I baked my wedding cake in, my dress felt too sad to look at but too meaningful to give away. But then I realised that I had a very glitzy party coming up - the @fortnums food and drink awards, for which my book was nominated for Food Book of the Year - and that I was going with the person who helped me choose that dress in the first place nearly 29 years ago (my friend Catherine). I never would have thought of wearing a yellow dress if she hadn’t chosen it for me. So although, it felt a bit crazy, I wore the dress! And the moment I put it on, it felt like a different garment. And yet, here the two of us still were, after all these years. renewing our vows as friends. ❤️ P.S. the book didn’t win. @rubytandoh was a totally deserving winner for her excellent and witty book ALL CONSUMING which you should definitely read, if you haven’t already. ✨✨✨ And I got to see my brilliant editor Louise Haines @4thestatebooks plus some of my total food heroes including @noorishbynoor (whose LUGMA is one of my absolute top cookbooks of last year) and the wonderful @roopagul , whose triumph for INDIAN KITCHENS was one of the most joyous moments of the evening, along with @longthroatmemoirs winning for food writer.

Sometimes I look again at my sad rusty wedding cake tin and think: ‘how did this become the subject of a book?’ I’m so thrilled and grateful to say that today I heard that THE HEART-SHAPED TIN has been nominated for Best Food Book at @thegfw awards (alongside the excellent PICKY by @jimfamished and ALL CONSUMING by @rubytandoh ) Thank you so much to everyone who has read my book so far and told me your own stories of the kitchen objects you can’t bear to let go of or the ones that remind you of people you’ve lost. Your responses have meant so much to me. Touring and talking about this book has given me some of the best and most emotional conversations of my life because as soon as you start talking about favourite objects, the ones that really matter, you start talking about people who can’t be with us at the table any more. Also, huge thanks to my editors Louise Haines at @4thestatebooks and Melanie Tortoroli at @w.w.norton and everyone else who worked so hard to turn my words into a book. And thanks most of all to the generous people who spoke to me about their own objects, from a mother’s vegetable corers from Syria to a father’s budare pan from Venezuela to some china that was too special to use…until it was too special NOT to use. PS huge congratulations to other shortlisted writers including @gurd_loyal @roopagul @sami_tamimi @cookhouse_anna @thisplacetastesdelicious & many more

I have long believed that holding the right kitchen tool can make you feel your own power. In my book THE HEART-SHAPED TIN, I write about the fact that I see my mother’s wooden spoons as shields. When I hold them, I stand up taller and feel stronger, even if I am only stirring soup. So I LOVED seeing the striking photographs of East London women holding their kitchen tools at the fabulous new @cafejikoni from @cookinboots at the new @vam_east from The Victoria and Albert Museum. Including @oliahercules . Photographs by @stolenoranges . If there is a better museum restaurant than this anywhere in London, I haven’t been to it. I was lucky enough to go for a preview meal a couple of weeks ago and am already yearning to return (the breakfast menu, which includes congee, looks so fabulous). We felt the menu delivered everything that different museum visitors might want, from fragrant vegan curry and a divine chicken pie for people wanting a hearty lunch to a children’s menu containing real and appetising food for once to pick me ups like a mug of lemongrass-scented broth or an exceptional spiced sausage roll. Also toasties! (I recommend the spiced aubergine one). And the cakes and baked goods! The best and prettiest iced bun I have ever tasted with the palest green yuzu icing. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention maybe my favourite thing of all. Dal with macaroni and peanuts. So comforting and restorative. If you get the chance to go to the museum, don’t miss @cafejikoni

Sometimes when we feel most powerless to change ‘the food system’, the place to start is just by asking simple questions. I’m so grateful to all of you who responded to my post about baby snacks and shared your own stories and impressions (and also thanks to everyone who read my long newsletter on the same subject on Substack). 🙏🙏🙏 And I have an update! The ‘bite and dissolve’ story about melty baby snacks was picked up by multiple news outlets in the U.K. a spokesperson for Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust finally replied a few days ago and ‘removed the webpage’ which had suggested that Wotsits and Cadbury’s Buttons etc etc were ‘Ideas for Food Textures to Offer Your Child’ while ‘we review the wording to make sure it is clear and fully reflects current guidance and best practice’. I feel sure that all of your responses made a huge difference. The spokesperson for NHS Gateshead clarified that the advice had only ever been intended ‘to support children with specific swallowing or feeding difficulties’ (although to me this had not been clear from the original webpage except for a mention of children struggling with lumps). Scroll through for the updated webpage and the webpage as it was when I was investigating. This feels like a small win to me. So thank you. And keep asking questions about food, even when you think it won’t make any difference. PS a few excerpts from the newsletter on the high cost of commercial baby snacks plus a reader response.