June Peels (2026)
pocket books, moss and trees; salt, wheat, wet; playwrights, c’est absurde!
hi, and welcome to The Onion Papers. Peels are a writer’s almanac featuring bread, soil, reading, kitchen and sky updates, and are published on the first Monday of each month. i’m so happy you’ve joined us.
Dear Readers, the summer month opened with Italian week at Lidl and one must rejoice for small pleasures. Otherwise, chaos. I sat on top of the hill in the Kelvingrove park, above the concert stage so I could pick up the melody without the overload of a crowd, of the lyrics, a few notes here and there, and I wrote with the dog on my laps first, then the laptop sitting above Leopoldo, drilling and drilling inside the room that shall be a kitchen. I made soups in the rice cooker, camping in the living room, always taking too many selfies with the dog, or not enough selfies with the dog, you tell me! Cacophony, always too much noise, until nothing but crowing, Leopoldo’s fast paws tiptoeing, my feet sole-tapping behind, the crunch of wet wood creaking between us and the Galloway forest ahead of us. Hear hear the rooster below, though this landscape is flat and the whisky of a clear dye, grassy with a touch of apple at the side of my tongue. Fingertips touching moss, the sight of green, fluorescent at that time of the year, drizzling and drizzling but third time lucky: three is for the golden light after the storm. Light carries onwards, so on to Dumfries next; wheat, wind, wheezing to Scottish mainland’s end, tap tap tap, one hundred and fifteen steps up to the lighthouse, the sea swelling underneath; wind turns, and Glasgow returns. Home, again. Finding handwritten recipes hanging on the walls of the cookery section in second-hand bookshops makes me smile. Finding a wee tree robust with thick bark eases me. Tender 10pm, lilac sky. Three golden raspberries (though still green) in the garden, two gooseberries and a fig tree to repot. Rainier rain than ever, somehow it is possible yet growing more unbelievable with each occurrence, wet wet, bloody wet until, after days of rain, midway through June the birds of Kelvinbridge rung the bells first thing on a Sunday morning and, for whatever fate may spare us, these are my favourite hymns. There was not one wrinkle on the Loch Lomond for the summer solstice. As for me, I was born nostalgic and have committed to carrying tiny French paperback books in my fleece pockets through June, reading playwrights with my ears and stopping to say hi along the way, answering “what are you reading today?” with greater details than I had anticipated. Then, home once again, this time for my yearly ritual cleaning of my pebbles collection but finding a pebble on which I had written “happiness” had sneaked in at the top of the bathroom jar. This life, ‘c’est absurde’, to echo French author, dramatist and philosopher Albert Camus, hard as a stone, overcrowded but multifaceted, as a pebble beach would showcase because, trust the collector, you could devote plenty of your time to finding pebbles on a beach and not once come across twice the same pebble in your whole, merciful life — remarkable, isn’t it?
bread update
A starter to feed back to life, stirring equivalent amount of flour and water, stirring still, on repeat around the same time every day before returning the jar to the counter, until it smelt strong enough for sourdough-discard crackers, then grew thick enough to make sourdough-discard crumpets for breakfast and, oh la, la, yes, generously, the starter began rising and falling reliably, time after time, and, oh oui, it was time for me to bake a rye bread:
80g rye starter, 80g water and 80g rye flour to prepare the levain; combine, cover and leave aside in a warm place;
let it rise;
mix 100g of rye flour, 150g of wholemeal spelt, 100g of seeds (sunflower, nigella, basil, pumpkin and fennel seeds, cashew nuts), 330ml of non-alcoholic malt drink, 100ml of water and the levain to prepare the bread mixture;
cover with a towel and prove overnight;
stir in 100g of rye flour and 150g of wholemeal flour, extra water as sees fit (weather dependent), and leave aside;
pour the bread mixture inside a well-oiled loaf tin and set aside; preheat the oven to 200C and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until baked through (about 20 minutes through the process, cover the loaf with baking paper or foil to avoid the top from burning)
Other than that, tinned tuna loaf for hikes and pita for friends. No-knead all around.
reading, listening
Reading this month was scattered, often interrupted if not micro and focused for research purposes, though there was dreamlike Benjamin Wood’s Seascraper, a paperback gifted to me on a bench. It is a fine-tuned literary novel, the story of Thomas who chose to live a slow life with his mother and works his grandpa’s trade as a shanker, until he is presented with the promise of Hollywood and a faint opportunity for his music to be heard. A short book that compresses timeless feelings, a poetry for the life we wish to live despite our circumstances.
Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett, followed by plenty of thinking about and around Albert Camus for a threatrical project. This quote from Albert Camus’ Nobel Prize banquet discourse struck me as one to pin above my desk:
At the same time, after having outlined the nobility of the writer’s craft, I should have put him in his proper place. He has no other claims but those which he shares with his comrades in arms: vulnerable but obstinate, unjust but impassioned for justice, doing his work without shame or pride in view of everybody, not ceasing to be divided between sorrow and beauty, and devoted finally to drawing from his double existence the creations that he obstinately tries to erect in the destructive movement of history. Who after all this can expect from him complete solutions and high morals? Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road. What writer would from now on in good conscience dare set himself up as a preacher of virtue?
And I would add that there cannot be too many re-readings of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. A murder mystery set in Italian monasteries in the Middle Ages, featuring heretics furthermore, and a labyrinthine library – what more convincing do you need?!
Finally, walking through an art gallery bookshop with my friend S., I was drawn to the green frame of Anna Mendelssohn’s Implacable Art, a collection of drawings and poetry, featuring Sonia Delaunay’s ‘La Cible’ painting (1971) on the cover. ‘Language collapses on language,’ Mendelssohn writes, reminding me page after page that there isn’t a new day without a palette because poetry informs judgement, for tomorrow shall be radical if there may be verses after tomorrow.
‘I might see roses on my lips
& hear the callous reckonings
of moral hypocrites’.
in the kitchen
Plenty of boxes and few utensils available, still:
one-pot minestrone from the rice cooker (20 minutes on the white rice setting, followed by 30 minutes on keep warm): anything truly, mix in, perhaps half a tin of chopped tomatoes or a spoon of harissa or tomato purée for flavours, what else? You could go for coconut, always, with a teaspoon of turmeric but plenty of if and that, and where did we pack the tamarind? At least bay leaves are still growing on trees, for now, and the sage is humongous, so is the fennel webbing outside the bedroom window.
an excellent mandolin for the fennel bulbs (and radishes and green apples and oranges; vinaigrette dressing) and the white cabbage (and capers and black olives and fennel stalks);
or a cheese grater to which I am grateful for it has seen better days but still serves me the best of favours, like a bowl of carottes râpées, tossed in with a drizzle of olive oil, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and a sprinkle of rock salt;
Because I crave salt, saltiness, a tidal buzz, buzzing around the kitchen after we had plugged in the cooker again, four (five?) weeks later, switched on the light and brought the wobbly dining table back in. The secret for the successful DIYers is to dive into snacks: read marmite-coated cashews (throw a splash of boiled water in a pan, a generous tablespoon of marmite, and mix in the cashew nuts; pre-heat the over to 180C, toss the coated cashews, sprinkle some rock salt, bake for 6 minutes, then grill for 4 minutes, but bear in mind that I like mine a little burnt because I relish a cracking summer bonfire always)
Then, a kitchen.
First, it had to be a pasta, or the soon-to-be-called “spaghetti ceciolini”, or a new yellow kitchen staple, for it is cushiony and chewy, not so lengthy but swirly still, the perfect partner for our vongole, a solstice pal since I had made the shopping and stirred half of the ingredients in the steel bowl before realising that I didn’t have any 00 flour in my cupboards. Turns out things do have a way to come together, so here comes summer knocking on our door with 180g of semolina and 120g of chickpea flour; a lukewarm touch of water, a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt.
Followed by couscous for friends, with sunny-side, soft-boiled eggs on top, and a veggie tajine for the neighbours (with a spicy chermoula).
And the inaugural cake had to be baked with a grind of selfishness, a childish memory and a generous amount of cocoa powder, mixed in with desiccated coconut, semolina and coconut yoghurt. Marble cake never grows old; it preserves even, when paired with a spoon of soy-milk vanilla ice-cream. Try it?
100ml olive oil
200g of coconut yoghurt
150g of semolina
2 tbsps of honey
70g of brown sugar
raising agent of your choice
2 eggs (beaten)
60-80g combo of cocoa powder and desiccated coconut
In a bowl, stir the semolina and the yoghurt. Add the sugar and honey and the raising agent. Pour the beaten eggs and the oil slowly, stirring continuously as you do, and a pinch of salt. I like to use a Danish whisk for this.
Time to marble the cake by removing a cup of the presentation and stir in the cocoa and coconut loosely (effectively making a marble effect). Return it to the main cake batter, swirling loosely still.
Bake at 180C fan for approx. 40 minutes though, as ever, I am no-one to tell you how your oven works so keep an eye on it.
from The Onion Papers
The aunts would tell you that soup should never be boiled, and I wrote about making minestrone over and again but against automatisation. This is about imagination, too:
I also wrote about my experience as a Jessie Kesson fellow for the Moniack Mhor June newsletter. Being awarded the Jessie Kesson fellowship is one of the best things that has happened to me this year (ever?) for my creative practice, or at least for this cabaret novel I am writing. It was my first residence, and I was terrified at the idea of being away from my sound-proof environment and safe space for weeks. I have no regret, for the staff at Moniack Mhor made me feel safe throughout, and for the learnings I gathered from preparing for and undergoing the experience. Here is hoping some of you drifty, fellow writers will find this helpful: https://www.moniackmhor.org.uk/becoming-jessie-kesson-fellow/
looking ahead (Glasgow, GMT)
The grass is tall, will be taller but my calves are short, so I shall be wet. It is getting stormy and stormier up here, heatwaves after heatwaves in the unleashed south, consequential for there are two poles of magnetic forces but nothing is ever that simple – no currents run straight ever, but there will always be one planet only. Say it now, loudly. There is no looking away from collapse. Summertime should be brilliant too, so might I suggest applying colours wherever and whenever you can? Wear cross-patterned clothes, pink and green, orange and green, turquoise blue and yellow, coral and purple; sand old furniture, repaint them; bring make-up back, why not, or a little sketch here and there; chalk on cement will break the heavens, also, a lipstick kiss. Feel sexy. Summer runs away but summer gathers with festivals and fairs and sport tournaments, picnics and all that jazz. And is there anything as sweet as spotting someone finding themselves on the large screen hanging at the side of a stage at a festival?! Be seen. Wish, shhh, click – July arouses and it’s still an excellent month for that mandolin to work its way up and down fennels and cucumbers and radishes and new potatoes. Or you may pick cherries from trees, spitting stones on the go, you unsettled thing. The moon will rise new for the Bastille on July 14th, then full on the 29th day of July. Be it, what an absurd time to be alive? True that but, also, still reading Albert Camus, in Les Justes I was reminded that ‘rien au monde ne vaut qu’on se détourne de ce que l’on aime.’ Non indeed, nothing in the world is worth turning away from what we love, so keep looking, scribbling, mingling, mending. Until next month, with love,
margaux
thank you for reading The Onion Papers. i’m margaux, a writer adrift, and this is my hybrid newsletter. if you enjoy my work, remember to subscribe and/or invite friends to the party as you keep me going. read more about TOP here.
PS. I write novels too.