Heat and hope and attention

About the author

Sam van Zweden

Sam van Zweden is a non-fiction writer interested in food, memory, mental health and the body. Her debut book, Eating with My Mouth Open,...

More from this edition

FictionI found Archie by the shallow end wearing a short terry-towelling robe open to the waist. Time and tide had left him shipwrecked and bloated, but you could still recognise him from the pictures on his album covers: same dark pouf and ducktail and duotone tan, only now he got his colour from a bottle and his hair from a can. He’d been drinking gin and tonic since happy hour started, brought out by an over-attentive waitress.

Finding the fundamentals of culture

MemoirValuing a job that creates something tangible is probably why, on leaving school, I opted to become a chef; I liked the idea of making food, and hopefully making people happy. It’s probably why I farm, because doing something physical, to produce something you can actually touch, is wired into me.

Lunch at the dream house

FictionThere were columns. It was white. Palatial. ‘Just smile and nod,’ Paul said, as he drove towards the fountain where a replica of Michelangelo’s Bacchus stood in all his glory.