THIS INSTALMENT OF 10 IMAGES features the work of Julie Ann Marr, a Vancouver-based food afficionado who runs Kitchen Culinaire, offering cooking classes, wine tastings, culinary tours and private dinner parties. In 1997 Marr graduated from the professional culinary program at the Dubrulle Culinary Institute in Vancouver, after which she worked in restaurants around the city for a few years before coming to the realisation that she wasn’t a good fit for the demanding life of a restaurant cook …

In 1982, when the BBC’s prime-time technology show – Tomorrow’s World – did a segment on a new musical format called the “Compact Disc” the presenter skeptically asked “Whether there’s a market for this, remains to be seen”. We all know what happened next, but even in the early ‘80s the benefits of CDs should have been clear: high quality, non-degrading sound in a compact format. Oh, and you could even skip, shuffle and repeat tracks, which, in a pre-digital world, truly felt like the future …

HEARD ON A podcast that Napoleon hired someone to read books to him while doing mundane tasks like brushing his teeth. P listens to podcasts while shaving and cooking, and I’ve begun listening to an economics podcast while putting on makeup. I still read only books and my Kindle though⏤no audio books for me.

IT’S STRAWBERRY SEASON and Wimbledon, which can only mean one thing: strawberries and cream. Have you been watching the tennis? Also, Summer Solstice was just a couple of weeks ago and we said a bittersweet good-bye to the longest day of the year. Here is a little of our lately: homemade gazpacho and June rose; pints on a sunny pub terrace and wildflower meadows; friendly llamas and gin and tonics and so much more…

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, a quote attributed to Simone de Beauvoir quickly circulated on French social media. “Never forget that all it takes is a political, economic or religious crisis for women’s rights to be called into question,” it said. “These rights are never fully acquired. You must remain vigilant your whole life.”

ON AN ESPECIALLY grim day around here, there will always be someone who mutters well you don’t live in Britain for the weather. And while that may be true, it’s definitely cosy when you’re sitting in someone’s home for tea where it’s bright and warm.

Old age is not exactly a time of life that most of us welcome, although globally speaking it is a privilege to reach it. In Western societies, the shocked realisation that we are growing old often fills us with alarm and even terror. As Simone de Beauvoir writes in her magisterial study of the topic, La vieillesse (1970) – translated in the UK as Old Age, and in the US as The Coming of Age (1972) – old age arouses a visceral aversion, often a ‘biological repugnance’. Many attempt to push it as far away as possible, denying that it will ever happen, even though we know it already dwells within us.

When I was 21, the cool thing to be was famous on Instagram. Now the cooler thing to be is a mystery. Anonymity is in. The youngest adult generation and the most online generation is frustrated with being surveilled and embarrassed by attention-seeking behaviors. This has instigated a retreat into smaller internet spaces and secret-sharing apps, as well as a mini-renaissance for Tumblr, where users rarely use their full names.

BY PURE COINCIDENCE, I recently watched both It’s Complicated, the 2009 film with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin; and Father of the Bride, the 1991 film with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton. Now everyone knows that when you watch Nancy Meyers films, the interiors nearly steal every scene (remember the charming cottage in The Holiday?), so when I came across the writer-director-producer’s redecorated Los Angeles home, of course I had to have a peek, especially since she worked with LA-based interior designer Mark D. Sikes, whose work has been featured here many times.