Someone give me a Kimchi Recipe

Caroline Plz x

Hello!

To anyone new - this is El from El Bras. I’ve put you here as you’ve expressed interest in keeping up to date with new projects and limited edition sets and courses. I write little stories about what I’ve been reading and watching and listening to. Sometimes it’s a bit sad, sometimes it’s a bit sexy, mostly its things that I find beautiful or interesting.

For everyone else - hey it’s been a while… I’ve been working myself like a little Christmas elf and neglecting my typing duties but i’m so excited to show you what i’ve been up to!

Some announcements before we delve into what I’ve been reading, thinking and listening too this week…

MY NEW WEBSITE IS LIVE!

Have a look on a desktop because it’s much nicer - particularly the ARCHIVE.

I’m still working on it but the shop is up and running & because I love you all my beloved readers I’m giving YOU a 20% off code that can be used throughout the whole website! This code expires on the 27th of November.

9T92RDC

I only have 3 more workshops before Christmas. If you were thinking of making all your presents this year I can vouch that people are never disappointed when they get hand made underwear for Christmas (it’s the only present i’ve given for about 5 years now and even though it’s expected from me, it’s never disappointing - I hope - friends and family pls tell me if this is annoying I’ll switch it up this year).

I have a t-shirt to pants workshop on the 9th of December and the whole set DIY lingerie workshops on the 26th of this month, and the 17th December. I have lots scheduled for post Christmas and GIFT vouchers available too if you wanted to give the gift of sewing skills and a day hanging out with me :)

I have a few markets too:

2nd Dec: SLAYRIDE - 1-6pm at Colours Hoxton run by Joyride! A day of filthy festive sellers, workshops and performances. You can get your tickets here

8th Dec: QUEERMAS in Vauxhall 5-10pm

And on the 10th December: Sid's & Friends Fundraising Fair at the Old Nun’s Head

There might be a surprise El Bras & friends Christmas pop up but that is TBC. OK Christmas announcements done where to being ….

THIS WEEK -

I finished reading Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner which is a food memoir about Michelle’s experience of her mother’s death from cancer when she was in her early 20s. Michelle is from the band Japanese Breakfast who I didn’t know before I read this book. I think I prefer her writing to her music but I’m now very much invested in keeping up with her creative journey. The book had me in floods of tears at the end at a passage where she likens grief to kimchi… I can’t explain as beautifully so I’m going to write out the passage here:

"She was my champion, she was my archive. She had taken the utmost care to preserve the evidence of my existence and growth, capturing me in images, saving all my documents and possessions. She had all knowledge of my being memorized. The time I was born, my unborn cravings, the first book I read. The formation of every characteristic. Every ailment and little victory. She observed me with unparalleled interest, inexhaustible devotion. 

Now that she was gone, there was no one left to ask about these things. The knowledge left unrecorded died with her. What remained were documents and my memories and now it was up to me to make sense of myself, aided by the signs she left behind. How cyclical and bittersweet for a child to retrace the image of their mother. For a subject to turn back to document their archivist. 

I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of a cabbage moulds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its colour and texture transmute. Its flavour becomes tarter more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death because it enjoys a new life altogether. 

The memories I had stored. I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her. 

I often think about the information I can no longer access now my dad isn’t around. My mum was always at work. The memories I have now are uncertain. Are the imagined? Are they dreamt up. Taken from a photo maybe? I find myself clinging onto any remnants of memories, dreams or signs I can find of any insight into why I am like I am today. My childhood, my dad’s childhood. The world’s inherited trauma and history. I was thinking yesterday about the 200 whole bloodlines / families that have been wiped out in Palestine and all of the forgotten unrecorded memories of families that have been erased from the world. How painfully tragic and horrendous it is. Even if there was anything recorded it’ll be gone in the destruction and the rubble. I’m feeling so so worn down by the state of the world and also feeling so lucky to have my family and all our archives.

I have these two diaries of my dad’s. The large on is from my parent trip to South America when they were 20/21 just before they have my sister. They actually discover my mum is pregnant on a boat going down the Amazon. In the diary dad never says Claudine is pregnant but there is lots of suggestions of working out what the plan of action is for these youngsters stuck on a boat where everyone is taking coke and sunburnt to fuqqq.

‘ Tuesday September 1st (1987)

Still feeling bad when I woke this morning at 6AM: Claud stirred, looked around - the engine is still deafening - tucked her nose under the book of solitude and slept another 3 hours. Coffee and bread-stone for breakfast, rice and chicken cube for lunch - feeling sweaty. Claudine vomiting a bit - where does it come from, this vomit, and the old tub has run aground some more. ‘

These diaries make me laugh and make me cry. Even though I have kind of forgotten my dad’s voice I feel like I can hear him through the pages. I can recognise the sense of humour and the turn of phrase. It’s funny that reading it I can’t see a 21 year old I can just hear my dad. Wow I just realised, I lost him when I was 21 and I’m reading his world at 21 and feel so connected to it. This hand written archive is a portal to connect us. Like the diary in the Chamber of Secrets lol I wonder what might happen if I write something in there. The second diary is more of a rambling nonsense notebook from just before he died. Full of song lyrics and chord sequences. There are occasional references to ‘the prawn’ (me), menu ideas and rUdeee and silly jokes. I don’t know if it’s actually ok to read someones diary - the more recent one is strange because its so surreal but it was during the time that he was properly loosing his marbles and dealing with his alcoholism. I think he would want me to have them and laugh and them and share them though - he was the biggest exhibitionist I know. I think that’s where I get it from.

LISTENING TO:

This kind of frantic but fucking amazing song that I found on Caroline Polachek’s Spotify playlist. I love her. I want to marry her. She is incredible.

Ciao bellas xxxxx