01. As part of Melbourne Design Week, I went to Tide Table: A Seaweed Supper. Described as an ‘immersive dining experience’, we enjoyed a seaweed-based menu that included some things made to look like something they weren’t – watermelon with whipped tofu and chilli oil that looked like perfectly sliced tuna sashimi, and incredible beetroot carpaccio that at a glance could be mistaken for pieces of kelp.

The evening included sound and video installations, melting table decor (seaweeds suspended in large blocks of ice), and stunning ceramics made by the artist for the occasion. Every single detail was magnificent (my photo doesn’t do the table setting justice at all).

02. I caught the tail-end of the German Film Festival:

• Four Minus Three – cried from beginning to end! (So good).
• 22 Laps – high hopes for this one but didn’t love it.

03. Random lovely things: got to hold my friend’s beautiful new baby (for a very long time); had a big splurge at Readings – six (!) new books on my shelf; finished all of my uni assessments for the semester; came home today just as my daughter was pulling a cinnamon babka out of the oven – the aroma was amazing (tasted equally amazing); another Carlton win (go Blues); and malt chocolate from Luther’s.

04. Interesting article in The New Yorker about Belle Burden’s memoir, Strangers (in summary, is it really the ‘financial thriller’ that Burden presents?)

05. My reality TV weaknesses are Below Deck, Southern Charm and Summer House… because I’ve been away, I had a few episodes of Summer House to catch up on. Watching them through the lens of the breaking news (IYKYK) was certainly very interesting.

06. Whenever I’m overseas I always scout for new nail polish (increasingly difficult given gel nails have taken over the world) but lots still exist in Austrian chemists – loving this metallic deep blue and this metallic green.

07. Listening: new songs from Olivia Rodrigo (The Cure) and Erica Avenue (One Night Romance).

08. RISING has started. Have to say, the program this year is far too interpretive-dance-heavy for my liking (I’m just not into dance) but we did go to a performance of Voiceless Mass by Raven Chacon, a Diné man born in Arizona within the Navajo Nation. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022 and was written to reflect the compromised history of and access to gathering spaces, and the role that sites of colonial power (such as churches) play in suppressing Indigenous voices.