Welcome to The Onion Papers: storytelling in the kitchen
TOPs are agglomerations and digressions from things I cook, eat, read and observe—a celebration of forms and imagination, flexing language—a recipe book and almanac in drafting, or a writer who cooks’ notebook.
This newsletter is an invitation to approach cooking as a thought process and to map meals as landscapes. The Onion Papers are for those who like to find connections between the various aspects of life, from literature to cooking, philosophy and seasonal patterns, against expectations and the ingrained boundaries between domestic and social lives.
I send curious, long-form essays every other Thursday. This Kitchen Alphabet is a good place to get to know me. Then, sometimes I cook and sometimes I trim artichokes; I write stories, I read, and I look at the sky often and, since am I a committed introvert, there is a huge amount of pondering about the wind and Scottish islands and seabirds. I also write a monthly writer’s almanac series, which is called Peels and features foraging, bread, listening, reading, sky and kitchen updates. You can expect two-to-three emails per month from me.
Margaux, who?
Margaux Vialleron, a French-born, Glasgow-based interdisciplinary writer, cook, collector of pebbles and coincidences. A library dweller. I’m the author of the novels Breaststrokes and The Yellow Kitchen and other writings. You can find me on Instagram at @margauxvlln, or walking with my best pal Leopoldo in all types of Scottish weather.
PS. you can check out TOP Pantry, an index of some of the Onion Papers recipes and reading lists. You can also browse all the books I mention in the newsletter via my Bookshop.org page.
Where to start?
If you’re interested in nature writing:
If you’re interested in food writing:
If you’re interested in language and linguistic:
If you’re interested in craft and the arts:
If you’re interested in travel logs:
