The May R.E.P.O.R.T.

A whole load of new recommendations.

This is the Salad Days R.E.P.O.R.T. It’s the thing that started this whole Substack!

We know you love recommendations, want to discover more independent brands and are keen to hear about cool things to do in London, so we started writing our monthly R.E.P.O.R.T. It covers everything we’re reading, eating, playing, obsessing over, recommending and treating ourselves to. We hope it will make for useful and interesting reading, and we send it out once a month.

This content is exclusively for you, our gorgeous subscribers, and we’ll strive to fill it full of top tier suggestions every time. It will always remain free and all past issues are available here. Thank you so much for being here 🌷

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READING: THE LONELY CITY BY OLIVIA LAING

I’m going away the weekend and in prep, headed to my favourite shop to pick up supplies. New books! Have you read this already? Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City was first published in 2016 and so I’m a bit late to the party. But in the last few years I’ve raced through their other releases: Crudo and The Garden Against Time, so I was super excited to find another title by this amazing author.

I’ve been actively working on my relationship with myself this year, particularly spending time in my own company. So this book, “the record of a personal quest to master the difficult art of being alone” is something that speaks to my heart now more than ever. Laing’s writing always manages to fuse interesting research and fact nuggets on a topic with their own personal life experiences. I find this makes anything they write easy to enjoy, because it’s like learning whilst also being peppered with funny/weird/interesting/salacious tidbits that keep things spicy. I know this will be gripping, and I can’t wait to report back.

Have you read anything by Olivia Laing? I also have really enjoyed her other books: Crudo and The Garden Against Time which came out this year. Highly recommend them all.

EATING: BRUNCH AT WILLOWS IN CLAPHAM COMMON

I was all but done looking for new brunch spots in South London. We all know Milk is unbeatable. But variety is the spice of life after all and I’ll admit it was a cute viral TikTok that persuaded us to give Willows a go! We can confirm it VERY much lives up to the hype and is absolutely worth visiting. In a traditional sense this place has absolutely every red flag going for it: it’s in Clapham, it’s aesthetic, it serves “small plates” in a Swedish kind of smörgåsbord “concept”. But do not be put off! This is an absolutely excellent brunch in a gorgeous café with the most friendly service ever. And the food was soooo good. The idea is simple: You get an itemised menu and you get to pick either 3, 4 or 5 choices to create your own breakfast board. It’s so nice if you’re the type of babe who likes to pick and try lots of different bits, which I really do. Especially if, also like me, you also get disappointed that you never get to have a sweet breakfast because it’s way too much to order two full plates of food. This way you get to have it all, in small manageable sizes. An absolute knock out, 10/10.

One of the best brunches we've had in South London. Aesthetic and delicious.

PLAYING: STRANGERS ON A BENCH PODCAST

There’s something sooo beautiful about the simple concept of Strangers on a Bench: musician Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a bench in London and proceeds to have a conversation with them. As you can imagine the conversations twist and turn in so many ways, it’s actually incredible how much life experience and crazy stories and memories they manage to pack into each ep. Some eps are lighthearted and funny, some are extremely dark and deep. Most swing between both. And as much as people’s experiences can be terrible, scary, heartbreaking, in most cases it’s so heartwarming to see how these negatives can result in new insights, new chapters of life, new moments of absolute joy. It’s absolutely incredible how Tom gets complete strangers to open up in just a few questions, and proves to me that we’re all just little Sims walking around and waiting for someone to ask us: what’s your story? I can get stuck in just listening to specific types of content, and this has given me a small insights into lots of different kinds of lives I might not have otherwise. And huge bonus: there’s no ads. Episode 19 has been my fav so far.

OBSESSING OVER: GIRLY BEER

DID YOU HEAR!? WE BREWED OUR OWN BEER! We were given the opportunity to collaborate with South London giants Gipsy Hill Brewery to create our very own Salad Days beer. So we did! It’s gonna be girly, it’s gonna be drinkable, it’s gonna be PINK. A few weeks back we went down to their Taproom where we met their brewer Sam for a day of… brewing. He walked us through the whole process step by step, and even gave us a tour behind the scenes of their giant vats which all felt very Midsomer Murders. We love a shandy and a radler, and so wanted to make something light and fresh for summer. And so the guys came up with the idea of a raspberry and hibiscus kolsch that’s only 3% which sounded absolutely perfect. We kept joking that we were making it for the girlies and the name sort of stuck, so you’ll officially be able to order a pint of “Girly Beer” at the bar this summer.

It’s going to hard launch at our next market on June 7th and I can’t wait for you all to try it. Our business is still only just the two of us and so it’s been kind of mind-blowing to get to do something like this, that’s on a whole other scale from our usual day to day. We really hope you love it and hope we get to have a few pints with you all there.

Getting to go behind the scenes at the Taproom was so cool, this is Sam who helped us brew the beer and walk us through the whole process. Thanks Sam!

RECOMMENDING: GLASS BAUBLE WORKSHOP AT GATHER GLASS

At the top of my new things to do list for this year was trying glass blowing. It’s good to stretch the brain in new ways, and it felt like being in front of a burning furnace of molten glass might be invigorating in a sort of fuck this is scary but also fun and creative kind of way. I was so pleasantly surprised to find there’s a glass workshop in South London, Gather Glass in Woolwich, so me and my bestie booked their bauble blowing workshop. It was such a cool new experience, and sooo fun! Like being back at school with bunsen burners but on a mega scale where obviously the stakes are much higher, I kept imagining falling into the big machine that burns glass at like a bajillion degrees but anyway!! On the more lighthearted side we got to pick the colours and the type of design we wanted, and the team then walked us through the process, going from a scorching orange blob to a fully formed ornament. I felt proud to support this craft and keep it alive in the city, and am so pleased with my finished piece. The team there really made it such a nice day out.

TREATING OURSELVES TO: A MADE BY NELLY HAIRBAND FOR MY BRIDAL LOOKS

I’m getting married this summer and have been looking for a few white and cream outfits to wear in the run-up and on my honeymoon. I left it too late to get one of these beautiful handmade ribbon hairbands from Made by Nelly at our last market: she sold out so quickly! She’s back trading with us at our next market on Saturday 7th June and I’m going to snap one up straight away. I recently worked out my three style words for another Substack article: girly, chic and handmade, and this baby ticks all three. She’s perfect.