Do you have Treat Brain? I know I do
A chicken pot pie, a poem for your Monday morning, and some thoughts on special treaties.
My weekend was particularly wholesome. I made a chicken pot pie, after making chicken stock from scratch. I planted two jasmine bushes in my front courtyard, which I will patiently monitor from my bedroom window until their vines are tall enough to twist along the fence. I watched an hour-and-a-half documentary about mushrooms.
Generally speaking, I enjoy wholesome weekends. I like cooking and tending and taking slow walks around my neighbourhood. But, at 30, my pivot to full-time wholesomeness is equally as frustrating as it is fulfilling. I didn’t manifest my cottagecore life into existence—I’ve been unwillingly trapped inside it.
For every fresh herb I clip from my garden, there’s a spicy margarita I wish I was having with friends. For each Friday night I spend catching up on Ted Lasso, there’s a sticky dancefloor that, in an alternate universe, I could be on. I love my silly little wholesome activities, but I miss my silly little parties and late nights too.
Anyway, here’s some shit I really liked this week!
The Aforementioned Alison Roman Chicken Pot Pie Recipe
I can’t mention making a chicken pot pie without telling you which chicken pot pie. After some research, I decided to go for this NYT Cooking recipe by Alison Roman because it involved a cast iron skillet, rotisserie chicken, and frozen puff pastry—three of life’s most simple pleasures. It was easy, tasty, and I will no doubt make it again.
And if you’re in the market for a cast iron skillet, let it be known that I adore my Lodge one.
Two Things To Read If You Constantly Feel Like Treating Yourself
Back in April, I read an edition of Rich Text by Emma Gray titled “The Endless Pit Of Desire”. I saw my 2020-self in it immediately. The newsletter is, essentially, about Emma’s desire to buy things—so many things—as a means of distraction from a global pandemic, the fractured US, and a time of stunted personal growth. “After a year of collective loss, all I do is want, want, want,” she wrote.
Every time I open a new tab, I imagine that this thing will be the one to quench my desire. The final touch on my space, the last new outfit of the season. The thing that will complete the picture and let me be my best un-garbage self.
I got thinking about Emma’s newsletter again this week when I read a Financial Times piece, “Treat brain: how the pandemic is rewiring our minds”. Before I even opened it, I knew I had Treat Brain. In the piece, Imogen West-Knights explained:
Before coronavirus, I had relatively good impulse control. I would treat myself to an unhealthy meal or a lazy afternoon or a new pair of trousers, but only occasionally.
This changed completely when lockdown arrived. Suddenly, I was eating pizza upon pizza upon pizza, their boxes towering up like greasy Jenga blocks in the corner of my flat. Every day was a day for emergency chocolate. I bought video games, make-up I didn’t know how to use and two suits in the space of one week. Gone was the little voice in my head that used to gently intervene when I was overindulging. Treat brain was in charge.
What I liked most about this Treat Brain thesis was that it investigated the (obviously) bad and (potentially) good sides of letting ourselves give in to the compulsive impulses we might have preciously had the willpower to fend off.
Obviously, over-spending on things we don’t truly need is bad. We are, after all, ‘rats in the maze of late-capitalism’, as Imogen puts it. But on the flip side, Treat Brain can help you interrogate why there are some things you don’t normally allow yourself to enjoy—mid-week dessert, fancy soda water, new socks that don’t slip down inside your shoe every time you leave the house.
For a lot of us, Treat Brain has already taken over (whether we like it or not), so the best we can do is direct it towards treats that have some tangible benefits—and won’t leave our bank accounts empty by the time lockdown ends.
And Finally, A Poem For Your Monday Morning
I came across this poem by Alex Dimitrov in The New Yorker last Monday and have read it at least 10 times since. So, it feels like the perfect time to share it with you.
Because if the below doesn’t ignite something deep inside you, well, I don’t know!
Doesn’t it bother you sometimes
what living is, what the day has turned into?
So many screens and meetings
and things to be late for.
Everyone truly deserves
a flute of champagne
for having made it this far!
What have you been in the mood for lately? I would love to know, so always feel free to reply or leave a comment.
Gyan x
Treat brain is too right. I just bought some of those personalised dog mugs that I kept seeing on facebook. Did I need them? No I have a cupboard full of mugs. It feels like every time we go back into lockdown, my brain is like "buy this, it'll make you feel better" I mean, I bought five summer dresses because apparently I think I'm going to have a hot vax summer lol.