Chai and good books

Two birthday gifts above–a package from Bellocq tea and a new mug. The Bellocq tea parcel and elegant tea strainer tugged me back into the romance of chai tea making, something I loved experimenting with awhile ago, and then forgot about (one good place to start, if you’re interested, is this food52 discussion on masala chai). Mythological chai seems to crest on milky sweet and spicy flavors with the tannic black tea filling in the rest of the wave underneath. No matter which path you choose–boiled milk, added sugar, extra spice–it takes time to make, so you anticipate it all the more, and sip it all the slower. (And for decaf fans, there’s a rooibos blend.)

I’m in so deep with the amazing Italian Elena Ferrante novels. Should you be so lucky to have not encountered these yet–the delight you have before you now!–you might as well buy them now en mass and mark off the next week or two of consciousness to read them. There’s no use putting yourself on the library waitlist because there are four volumes and once you finish one, it’s all you’ll think about until you have the next one in your grasp. I’m tempted to say that everything people like about tv shows like the Bachelor is in these books–heartache, affection, friendship, ambition, betrayal. That sells them short, they are so much more than that, but it also sounds right.

Beach read as a term doesn’t make much sense for me because I’m terrible at reading in direct sunlight, but let’s interpret it to mean you can leave off the page and start back up again in a moment. These books are absolutely that.

I’m reading all of them on my kindle, which allows for a few pages before bed and a few more pages in the morning light (I have the kindle voyage, with adaptive lighting) before anyone else wakes up. They have consumed my last few weeks.

Ferrante describes feelings through faces–the characters’ skin, bones, and eyes reflect their inner feelings. One day a hustling teenager may look like a weary old woman, another day an old woman will convey the joy of a carefree youth. I think this is true in everyday life, but rarely do you encounter an author who can describe it so exactly.

The fact that they were translated from Italian by New Yorker editor Ann Goldstein–and that she learned Italian later in life–is making me want to pull out my old Italian texts from my semester and summer abroad. Funny fact: because of the history of the neighborhood Lux’s kindergarten is in, all students take weekly Italian classes. I wonder if she’ll remember any murmurs from visiting at age 2.5. We’ll have to plan a celebratory return trip after her first year.