Episode 4 of the Delicious Miss Dahl was on Melancholy. Something I think Sophie Dahl was born to make. Not in a bad way. It was wonderfully over-indulgent and captured the self-deprecating and lackadaisical nature we find ourselves in at times of all-consuming melancholy. Dahl describes it as 'Somewhere between the cross-roads of sadness and suffering. ..But also a slightly ridiculous, old-fashioned affliction.' She knows it. That's for sure. There's no pull-youself-togetherness.
What I liked about the Nostalgia episode was that as well as some good music I can pretentiously do a slow nod of my head to in a well-done-you-know-good-music to, I also heard some new music I liked. I really liked Melody Gardot's Who Will Comfort Me which has a parisienne lilt to it, surely the city of wallowing and self-pitying indulgence. I have heard of Melody Gardot before and her story, she had a near-fatal car accident at 19, using music as her therapy she was reborn and produced some insightful music. But it's nice to hear it in an apt setting, i.e. the delicious miss dahl on melancholy, to appreciate it. Old school favorites included Jose Gonzalez's Heartbeats I will never tire of this track, KT Tunstall Under The Weather, Adele's Right as Rain.
Maybe new to you was the Go! Team's Feel Good By Numbers. If you're melancholic and ready not to be, The Go! Team are so uplifting and woo-hoo. I so strongly recommend their first album. Listen at volume. With a smile on your face and dance in your step. The Delicious Miss Dahl also played I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl, by Bessie Smith I think, here played by Nina Simone. And woah. What a cool version. Inform me of the artist in the show if you know. I'd like to know.
"I want a little sugar in my bowl
I want a little sweetness down in my soul"
There was a lovely lovely excerpt from English Writer Sydney Smith to Lady Morpeth. Nearly 200 years old it may be but sadly it is still relevent to today as melancholy lives in. Maybe not 'sadly' actually, as I think many of us actually quite enjoy a bit of melancholy from time to time.
"Dear Georgiana,
Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have
so I feel for you. Here are my prescriptions.1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 or 80 degrees.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana."
How truly yummy. Mantra for the days. Absolutely.
As Dahl said though, it's missing food. Damn straight. As she said, 'It's difficult for the smell of hot red wine and onions not to cheer you up'. Her recipe for Bubble and squeak cakes with a fried egg and red onion gravy. Yes. Please.Including a 'blue egg for a blue day'. That made me smile.
And anything with orange chocolate in it shows she has deep understanding of sadness and wrap-me-in-tenderness food. I think she had it right in the set to from open fires to her comforting baggy shirt. She sums it up with 'In a state of melancholy all you notice is the sludge in the river, children falling over in the snow, the unfairness of it all'. She also managed to hail star anise, my new favorite spice too, compared mushrooms to little old men in berets, think that prawns could be like roughians in cashmere cardies and decidedly cheery and muse about calling up Eeyore and inviting him for tea.
Sophie Dahl you washed away my last cloud of melancholy. Ahhh, foodie crush heaven.
I leave you with this quote from Dorothy Parker, american writer and poet,
“Razors pain you; rivers are damp; acids stain you; and drugs cause cramp. Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful; you might as well live."
